If you have a vegetable garden, time to plant cool season crops such as beets, broccoli, cabbage, onions, greens, etc.  Plus strawberries.

If not already done, it’s also time to plant cool season flowers such as alyssum, begonias, celosia, petunias, dianthus, dusty miller, snapdragons, gara, gazinnia, impatiens, sweet peas, etc.

Lawns

• If not already done, apply a slow release fertilizer.  Do not use a weed and feed product.
• Continue weed control – avoid allowing them to go to seed.
• Continue monitoring for pests.  Chinch bugs, sod webworm, and grubs are still active.

As cooler weather arrives, clean your tools and equipment, including pesticide sprayers.  Apply raw linseed oil to wooden handles and WD-40 on any metal.  When mowing stops, have your equipment serviced for the coming year.  This is also a good time to buy new/replacement items.

Citrus  Look for caterpillars, leaf miners, aphids, and scale, on foliage.  You should begin harvesting navel, Hamlin and Satsuma fruits soon.

Landscape

• Continue monitoring for pests.  By the way, this is a good time to buy pesticides – usually cheaper.
• Review your landscape.  Does it need improvement?
• Check the condition of plants – may want to replace some and upgrade landscape.
• Add/replenish mulch as needed.  Also fluff up but keep away from plant trunks.
• If you have poinsettias, Christmas cactus, or kalanchoe, shield them from night time lighting to encourage flowering.
• Check your perennials, including bulbs for any needing thinning or division.
• Monitor roses for mites, thrips, and black spot.
• Clean/repair outdoor furniture, fencing, or landscape structures.
• Check container plants – grooming, repotting, pest control.
• Clean used pots.

Misc.

• Now is a good time for utility locates, if you’re  planning on changing your landscape.
• Monitor, clean, repair, and adjust as needed irrigation system, hoses, sprinklers, etc.
• Prepare for cold weather protection.
• Begin keeping a diary of your gardening activities, including when pests appear, when to fertilize, when to prune, etc.    Also visit solutionsforyourlife.com website and print copies of bulletins on the various plants in your landscape.
• Have an arborist check your trees for any needed work.  It will also be cheaper.
• Start a compost pile.

Avoid – Heavy pruning.  Wait till late Dec – Feb to do this and avoid pruning any plants that bloom before June 30   Wait until after they bloom.