Brian Minter: How to clean up your fall garden and plant for the seasons ahead

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On the way to a speaking engagement in Vancouver a few days ago, I had the chance to drive through many different neighbourhoods and see some great gardens.

The recent rains we’ve enjoyed were life saving for so many lawns, trees and plants, but they also drew down the curtain on our season for a lot of annuals and perennials.

Even the street plantings and roundabouts, many added by folks who volunteer their time to beautify their curbside areas, looked a little tired.

October is a wonderful time to refresh and renew our gardens. This can be done in many different ways, but the idea is to replace a tired look with the promise of fresh gardening opportunities going forward. This is true for the tiniest patio right up to those streetside plantings.

One of the first things we all need to do is a garden tidy-up. Spent annuals can now be composted and those areas made ready for fall and winter colour. Adding fresh organic matter and loosening the very compacted soil with fine fir or hemlock bark mulch will make a huge difference during our inevitable heavy winter rains.

So many perennials that provided great summer colour are also on their downward cycle now and should not only be pruned back but enhanced with some organic nutrient like Sea Soil.

If these areas are missing fall colour, planting late-blooming perennials would keep the sequence of colour going. Fall asters, late blooming heleniums like Embers, with its lovely fall tones, and the striking, deep blue caryopteris would be great candidates.

It’s also time to plant late-fall flowering