Fall clean-up – or not!

By Judith Slater

Making the most of the last few sizzling days has to be the most important item on everyone’s agenda. Camping, cottage trips and hanging out in the garden are being squashed in to make the most of the glorious summer weather we’ve had this year.

I often start howling like a banshee when I spot the first few leaves in the gutter! The few sickly trees always signal the inevitable slide into fall, with their early change of leaf colour due to their weakened state. Time to dust off the leaf rake and head to Home Hardware to start buying leaf bags – but wait – do you really need them? Read on…

Leaves

1) Create piles of leaves on your lawn or driveway and mow them into oblivion, then rerake into the lawn and flower beds – you have instant mulch. Leaf mould will then break down over the late fall and early spring to help your lawn and garden grow in the next season. Only have a push mower? Ask a neighbour to borrow their electric or gas mower for an hour.

3) Rake the leaves onto the beds. Our season’s pollinators often hibernate in small crevices and old wood, so you will be providing them with a great place to hang out. You will need to leave them on the beds until late April though as they are still snoozing at that point. This means you have to put off clearing the beds in the spring – aw shucks!

Plants

1) Transplant and divide any plants that have finished flowering. Share with neighbours, friends or let us know, as we have worked with some lower-income clients who would welcome an influx of free plants to their sun or shade garden.

2) Put any diseased leaves or plants (phlox and peony often get mouldy leaves, while rose leaves get black spots, and hollyhocks often get “rust”) into the City of Ottawa’s yard waste bins. Their compost pile gets hot enough to kill the many moulds that would otherwise reinfect your plants if you compost them in your own garden composter.

3) Cut back flowering perennials to within a few inches of the ground – iris can be cut back with scissors into a fan shape – and leave some sturdier foliage to create winter interest.  These can include purple coneflowers and sedums. Check the internet for specific times to cut back other plants like shrubs and vines, as times may differ.

Lawns

1) Don’t get me started! Oh my goodness! The number of lawns I’ve seen that are decimated by grubs this season has been incredible. Fertilize, overseed and keep watering during hot spells.

Although the Gentle Gardener has not removed any lawns, we have sodded one area that otherwise was gravel and dirt. The result is a huge improvement with fall flowering clematis climbing the neighbour’s decking. It took two crew members four hours to wheelbarrow the gravel into a 4.6 -cubic-metre bin, then a further three hours to install 3 cubic metres of soil to create a green oasis.

Gardening clients have kept us hopping this summer in the Glebe and many other neighbourhoods. We’ve also installed small paths and bbq patios, built small retaining walls and relaid sunken interlock! Gardening? Yes, we’ve done plenty of that too. Clients have struggled to find contractors for smaller jobs, so we’ve become adept at filling the void.

The most challenging garden overhauls were on Holmwood Avenue. Three residents with gardens on a steep incline had a crew in to overhaul their beds, moving taller plants higher up and smaller ones lower down, with each cubic metre of soil and mulch having to be bagged, hauled up steps and, in one case, taken through the house before being installed! Soaker hoses were challenging to install as, yes, gravity meant that water couldn’t go sideways or uphill! The eventual solution was a four-way hose splitter, with four flat soaker hoses going down the slope to water the plants.

The muddiest jobs that I naturally enjoyed the most (I loved making mud pies when I was a kid!), were power washing interlock stone. At the end of the day, I’d have to take my work clothes with me into the shower to rinse off the dirt. I’d have a “high-tide” mark where my socks stopped and my legs started! Such fun and so rewarding to see the change in colour of the stones.

We had an awesome crew working with us this summer! Some are returning to Glebe Collegiate, others are off to university for their first year, others entering second year! Tracey and I were very thankful for their hard work over the summer months.

Our website finally went live in August! To view it, go to thegentlegardenerottawa.com to see some of the season’s work!

Judith Slater and co-gardener Tracey Deagle of The Gentle Gardener and their crew enjoy making Glebe gardens rock this season!