Saying urea is too expensive shows your lack of understanding of granular fertilizer. 46% nitrogen is the highest percentage of N you can get in granular form. 90% of the blends out there use urea and maybe a little ammoniacal nitrogen from ammonium nitrate. If you bought a 50# bag of 34-0-4 for $12 per bag, a bag of 46-0-0 Urea at $16.24 would cost the same per 1,000sqft. That bag of 34-0-4 was probably sitting in someone's warehouse for the past year and that's why it was $12/bag. The 34% nitrogen in that blend was probably urea anyway, unless it was ammonium nitrate. And the 4% potassium does you nothing unless it is carrier for a control product - especially when potash is like $1000/ton right now. Blended at the same time period, a bag of 34-0-4 would cost you more per 1,000sqft than a bag of 46-0-0. Is there any form of slow release in that bag of 34-0-4, such as SCU, IBDU, UF, PCU, etc? If so, you are wasting money since you don't really need any form of slow release after top growth stops. If there isn't any slow release and you are applying it in September/October before top growth stops, all of that nitrogen will go into the top growth instead of the roots in that time period. So you can't claim it's a winterizer, since it will do nothing for your carbohydrate stores, root growth, or holding color through December. That would be a fall feed, not a winterizer. You said that you usually don't post here. Let's keep it that way. You are putting bad information in front of homeowners and newbies that come here for free advice. Why would a homeowner spend money on a sprayer and a jug of chelated iron that will probably freeze or spill in their garage over the winter when a good granular fert program including fertilizer with iron will get you the same/better results? I would like two lawns, side by side, one using the late fall urea apps, and the other using your spring chelated iron idea. Under the same conditions, the lawn with the late fall nitrogen theory will have deeper roots and hold color longer without excess top growth in the spring. Saying using most of your Nitrogen in late fall is not necessary is putting bad information in front of gullible people.

I don't like cutting things back too hard in fall, if they stay green or have the good foliage, like grasses. Many of your perrenials will brown up with a couple frosts and regular cold, like peonies and the sedum, salvia, lily stems. Then you can cut them down. I leave some stalk height as markers, my garden is quite thickly planted. Morning glory is an annual, I would pull it down whenever I got tired of it, green or dried, for neater winter appearance. Cut it off at the ground. Clematis is another climer, but a perennial. I leave alone in fall, mine stay green most of the winter, give birds shelter. They get trimmed in early spring, down to a couple feet tall. Clematis do better if pruned heavily, and I want them cut before the birds return to nest in them. Lovely flowers in many shapes colors. Three types, early, mid, late flowering, to bloom at different times of the season. They might be something you would like too. I tried leaving my dried sedum for winter interest, just didn't like it in winter so I cut it about halfway thru. Just was ugly. My grasses were pretty nice over winter, but I cut them back VERY early, late Feb or March to prevent the leaves and mess you mentioned. I think the big grasses need a bit of cover to protect the clump over the coldest times. I wouldn't cut grasses in fall, but that is me. Lavendar needs to be left alone for winter. You will probably get some die-back anyway, don't want to kill the plant with no branches to spare. You should trim it in spring, just when the new growth is starting, to know what is alive. Bell flower I just cut the flower spikes off, same with Liantris, by which I think you mean for the "roman candle flower". Leaves help me locate them for spring work. Not sure what goosenecks are, Gooseneck Loostrife? I would cut that down after it dries out when frosted. The other plants I am not recognizing from descriptions. Sage the herb, is tough, will come thru winter, but the woody stems don't need trimming back. I killed mine doing that. Just trim it on the ends, new growth, next spring for neater appearance. You can save your yard leaves, Oak are the best. Don't EVER burn them. Run the mower thru them to shred them up, use that for mulch over winter. Returns a lot of nutrients to soil, makes a nice mulch and protective layer. I would fertilize in spring, not now because plants would grow better, get winter damaged in cold. If you have extra leaves, you can bag them up for spring use or start a small compost pile for next year. Even just mowing the leaves onto the lawn, is better for the lawn, than wasting the leaves. Like a free fertilizer treatment. Small pieces of leaves don't pack or clot up like full sized leaves. I would not save Black Walnut or Butternut leaves since they contain jugalone, poison for some plants. I don't think I would do much shrub trimming now. Hollies get wind-burned over winter, dry out in cold wind. The small evergreens might benefit from a little shaping, but not massive trimming so late in season. I would trim and shape both of these in early spring, April. That time would let you remove the winter damages, not be hard on newly awakened plant. You might want to start a Journal, keep track of stuff for yourself. See what works or doesn't, for YOU, plants you have. My mom loves to have everything tidied up for fall, makes it easier for her in spring. Looks kind of stark to me, in late fall. I have some fall and spring work because I have different plants, different location in the state. Journal can be very simple, some dates, what worked or failed, just a tracking device for your notes. Easier than trying to keep it in your head. Good luck, sounds like your garden is working well for you. Kale are great winter plants, along with pansies, love the colder temps. An idea for the bare spots of fall and winter.

Hi Hunter! I have a weather station in a cold spot in yard and the coldest temperature it has recorded so far is 42F. Other nearby weather stations recorded 44F so I guess my yard is a little bit cooler (I wish it wasnt true!). I had to take in a lot of plants today because the forecast is really cold. Saturday is suppose to get to 33F so it looks like this year we will get our first frost a month earlier than the time we got our first frost last year. Hopefully we get the cold over with in early winter and things warm up for late winter and spring! My Plumeria was a big challenge to take inside today, it stands at over 10 feet tall right now! I remember 3 years ago when I got it as a 1 foot tall stick. Banana trees and bamboo is a good sign of a nice climate! My Velutina is doing good. The bananas never really did ripen enough to eat, but I guess the seeds are somewhere on the ground. The pup outgrew the mother plant this year and It has some more pups on its way! I'll probably dig it up this year since its still small, but I'll keep it in the ground next winter. Thanks for looking! Im glad you liked the pics! -Alex

Hi all, Finally finding time to get back here to post! MISTY -- I can't be sure because of the wide color variation, but I believe your first hen & chicks pic is of 'Icicle', and the second pic looks like the one I call C to me. I'm fairly sure on both of them, but would need to see "spring" pics to be positive! I have you down for the things you asked for, and let me know for sure about the 'Icicle', but if yours usually looks like the pics I'm gonna post below in late spring, you already have 'Icicle'. BARB -- you're covered on the 'White Nugget'! POLYGONUM -- could you possibly snip a handful of yellow iceplant cuttings off of yours for Misty and Lesuko? Most of mine suddenly died off last year--as I've warned folks can happen!--and while I could get "some" cuttings off of mine, they're really "wimpy" looking right now, and it sounds like yours is doing really well and would provide better cuttings! If that doesn't work for you, let me know and I'll bring some of my wimpy ones! Let me know if you had time to check out your semps! A couple of them I only got one "batch" of, so they're already spoken for, but I still have A, E, G, H, K, and 'Icicle'. Gonna post some pics of 4 of them below! LESUKO -- I have you down for one of everything I posted above--with the yellow iceplant from either Polygonum or me! I have LOTS of cuttings for most of the sedums, so, except for a couple of them, I'll have a really nice bagful of each for you--along with the directions for what to do with them! Will also bring a nice big bunch of the bare root Ajuga for each of the first three, and will have at least a couple starts for the 'Black Scallop'. Also the hen & chicks--with directions, the 'White Nugget' iceplant, and I haven't done them yet, but probably a start for the Turkish Veronica. Virtually everything I have this time is ground covers, so it won't really get anything going on in your yard vertically, but it will help to fill up some of the bare soil, and you can always dig them up later and give them away to somebody else when you get around to planting other things! With your strawberry runners, no, they don't need to be attached for them to root, so snip some off and bring them along! All you need to do is "tuck" the bottom of the offshoot into the soil and let it root so they don't really don't really need the "runners" attached, but if there's some runner left on it, it can be used to help "anchor" it into the soil until it roots, so you might want to snip them with some of the runner still attached. Don't know how many you have, but you might want to make up a/a few "little batches" of them for "picking." I also have 11 "perennial" things in pots, like I mentioned above, and while some of them are just rooted pots of the sedums I posted above, there are a couple things I didn't post--and I'm gonna keep them secret till the swap--but I know folks are gonna want them! :-) And I also dug/pulled some bare root "something else" today that I'll have three "batches" of--and I'm not gonna tell you what it is! They're currently residing in the vegetable drawer in my fridge--since they're bare root! Oh! And also got a really good batch of seeds from one of my perennials this year that I seldom have enough to give away--is that an illiterate sentence or what?--so I made up some seed packets to bring of "that," and one other thing that folks are usually interested in! And that's probably it for this time! I'm not a big fan of Cold Hands Gardening, so I probably won't be poking around out there looking for things anymore--gonna try to get the Ajuga dug/pulled tomorrow, hopefully before the front moves in! And, since it's gonna be cold out by Thursday, I collected the hen & chick starts today and I was able to get more of some of them than I thought I would! Since only one person has expressed any interest so far, and since there are probably only gonna be about 6 folks at the swap, I'm gonna post a few more pics of the ones I have more than one "batch" of, so even if you don't ask for them in advance you can look to see if there are any you'd like to get on the day of the swap. As you can see from these pics, the color varies GREATLY depending on the time of the year and the winter temps in any particular year! I'm just posting the small version of the pics, but they should all be clickable to see the bigger versions! A - I have 4 batches that aren't spoken for E - I have 5 batches that aren't spoken for K - I have 4 batches that aren't spoken for - winter color - summer is all "blue spruce" color! 'Icicle' - I have 5 batches that aren't spoken for A few more pics! I really do have a lot of most of the sedum cuttings! Sedum 'Tricolor' in summer and winter color on the right side of the second pic Sedum 'Angelina' summer and winter colors Sedum album - the Dangerous One! Plain green in summer, this is winter! Sedum reflexum 'Blue Spruce' - same in summer & winter! Sedum pachyclados - same color summer & winter! Sedum 'Dragon's Blood' - Plain green in summer - this is where the name comes from! (Don't have a whole lot of this one!) And two of the Ajugas! 'Royalty' 'Chocolate Chip' Don't have a good pic of 'Arboretum Giant' but it's pretty much plain green leaves that are about twice as big as the 'Royalty'! And not gonna post a pic of the 'Black Scallop' or everybody will want some--and I don't have a whole lot--yet! Not gonna bring a lot of the Ajugas unless I know somebody wants them! Will bring a couple "bunches" in addition to the one of each that's already promised, so if you want more, let me know! Skybird P.S.!!! Almost forgot this one! Delosperma basuticum 'White Nugget'