What to do in your garden in October - Checklist Mountain

Sunset, Oct, 2002 by Marcia Tatroe

PLANTING

* COMPANIONS FOR SPRING BULBS. For a more colorful spring display overplant spring-blooming bulbs with early-flowering perennials; the bulbs will grow up between the flowers. Good perennial choices include basket-of-gold (Aurinia saxatilis), common aubrieta, creeping basket-of-gold (Alyssum montanurn), English primrose (P. polyantba), and wall rockcress (Arabis caucasica).

* GARLIC. Choose hardneck types like 'Chesnok Red'. Break bulbs into cloves; plant each clove 4 to 6 inches apart and 3 to 4 inches deep in good garden soil in a bed that receives full sun. Mulch the bed after planting. Filaree Farm (509/422 6940 or www.filareefarm.com) sells many garlic varieties, including 'Chesnok Red'.

* LANDSCAPE PLANTS. Set out hardy ground covers and container-grown tees, shrubs, and perennials no later than six weeks before the ground normally freezes in your area. From fall through winter, water the transplants often enough to keep their rootballs from drying out.

* PERENNIAL TULIPS. Most tulips are short-lived hybrids that last only one or two seasons. But species tulips come back for several years or longer if the bulbs are kept dry over the summer. Among the species tulips that form large colonies over time are T bakeri, T. batalinii, T clusiana, T.c. chrysantha, T. greigii, T. puichella, T. praestens, and T. tarda. A good mail-order source is High Country Gardens (800/925-9387 or www.highcountrygardens.com).

MAINTENANCE

* CLEAN OUT BIRDHOUSES. Wearing rubber gloves, remove and discard nesting material from birdhouses. To help prevent the spread of avian diseases and parasites, rinse birdhouses with a solution of 1 part bleach to 10 parts water. Allow them to dry thoroughly then remount.

* CUT BACK PERENNIALS. After the first hard freeze, cut back perennials such as aster, campanula, daylily, phlox, and veronica, leaving 6-inch stubs above the ground.

* DEAL WITH PINE NEEDLES. In the fall, older needles on the inside of pine branches turn brown and drop off. Gardeners in fire-prone areas should rake up and discard pine needles. In other areas, needles can be left where they fall under trees to act as mulch or raked up and spread elsewhere in the garden. For a finer mulch, run needles through a chipper or shredder.

* HARVEST, STORE CROPS. Pick broccoli and brussels sprouts before a killing frost hits. Cut pumpkins and winter squash with 2-inch stems; store at 50[degrees] to 60[degrees]. Beets, carrots, potatoes, and turnips keep best at 35[degrees] to 45[degrees] in barely damp sand. Onions and shallots need cool, dry storage in mesh bags or slotted crates. Store apples and pears indoors in separate containers at 33[degrees] to 40 [degrees]

* IRRIGATE. If local water-use ordinances permit, continue to irrigate flower beds, lawns, shrubs, and trees when the soil is dry 2 to 3 inches beneath the surface.

* MULCH FOR WINTER. After a hard freeze, spread 2 to 3 inches of compost, weed-free straw, or other organic matter to protect bulbs, perennial flowers, strawberries, and vegetables.

RELATED ARTICLE: Coping with drought in Colorado.

Due to severe drought conditions that persist in Colorado, the Denver Water Board and some other local water utilities recently imposed a total ban on lawn watering, effective October 1.

Lawns of Kentucky bluegrass, buffalo grass, and tall fescue go dormant in winter and can survive without irrigation for many months. To protect dormant lawns in areas where watering is banned, limit foot traffic and do not fertilize, dethatch, or aerate the grass. For more turf management tips from Colorado State University Cooperative Extension, go to www.colostate.edu/Depts/ CoopExt/4DMG/Lawns/droughtl.htm