MULTITASKING IN AUTUMN
Seasonal rains are sending cascades of water down on this part of the northeast. My neighbor’s hemlock tree has responded by shedding millions of needles. I give thanks for every one of them because they make such wonderful mulch. All I have to do is wait until they dry, sweep them into a big pile and spread them over the beds. The needles smell good, stay put and insulate the garden from the vagaries of the fall weather. If I didn’t place such a premium on sunny growing space, I would have a few conifers of my own. The dropped needles, which I categorize under the catch-all phrase “pine straw”, save me a fortune in shredded cedar mulch and keep me from having to lug all those big plastic bags.. This also saves landfill space and back muscles. Using the free pine straw, rather than sweeping it up and throwing it away, or even throwing it on the compost pile, is one way of multitasking in autumn.
Like spring, fall is a time of many chores. The still-verdant grass has to be mowed; the plentiful leaves have to raked or blown away. The remnants of summer’s bounty, in the form of browned stalks, dead flowerheads and spent annuals are begging to be cleaned up. Bulbs should go into the ground before it freezes hard. The shrubs may have slowed down, but they haven’t stopped growing. Roses need to be pruned back so the long canes don’t suffer winter damage. For vegetable growers, it’s time to bring in and process the last of the harvest. Combine all these necessary tasks with the ever-present threat of questionable weather and you may find yourself in need of additional strategies for multi-tasking.
One easy garden “two-fer” is clean-up and bulb planting. My front garden is home to scores of asters, especially the big purple-pink ones called ‘Alma Potschke’. They grow to be about five feet tall and when they are cut back, the beds suddenly seem very empty. This emptiness invites bulb planting. I usually put a few bags of bulbs in my garden basket along with the clippers, loppers and trowels. Every time I hack down a big clump of asters, I install a clump of bulbs. The same is true of spent annuals. When I haul out cosmos that are on their last legs or the skeletons of bountiful nasturtiums or even the remnants of tomato plants, I take advantage of the loosened earth to plug in still more bulbs. If you are one of those people for whom the glass is always half empty, you can rationalize this by saying that your back is going to hurt anyway, so you might as well bend over a few extra times and do double duty. Cutting back dead daylily foliage also opens up vast expanses of space that is perfect for daffodils and tulips. Next spring the emerging daylily foliage will return the favor and cover the dying daffodils and tulips. The same thing is true of hostas. Removing the ratty, slug-damaged, browning leaves is a service to the gods of aesthetics. Planting bulbs in the cleared spaces–especially if those spaces are under deciduous trees–should get you canonized by those same gods.
If there isn’t enough pine straw to go around, I like to combine shrub pruning with mulching. The pruned branches of most shrubs can be used to mulch the ground around them. If you don’t like the looks of that, save the prunings and clippings for shrubs that grow by the sides of buildings or fences. Spread them behind those shrubs and the neighbors will have no reason to condemn you as a slacker who is lowering property values with your untidy habits.
If you like dried plant material for winter arrangements, gather it while you weed, clip and plant bulbs. Last year I simultaneously pruned the roses of Sharon and collected the seed pods for indoor bouquets. The same thing happened with the peegee hydrangea which got a little shaping while yielding large numbers of flower panicles for drying. Remember the crafty person’s rule of thumb–almost any bit of garden detritus, from pinecones to seed pods to sweet gum fruits can be gilded with gold spray paint and used as a holiday decoration. You can be “green”, economical and fashionable if you multi-task wisely.
By combining tasks like clean-up, pruning and bulb planting, you can work your way around even a big garden just once and finish all the major chores. Of course pacing is everything and you don’t want to go so slowly that snow flies before you have gotten all the way around. If you have to pick only one task, it’s best to get the bulbs in the ground.
Still, most of us fritter away an awful lot of time, even during busy seasons. Fifteen or twenty minutes of multi-tasking now and then can yield significant results. All you have to do is focus.