Is It Too Late To…?

November 9th, 2010

   November brought our first killing frost that knocked off most of the annuals and tender veggies. Yank ‘em and compost ‘em, if you haven’t done that yet.

   Fall weather also has brought a lot of questions about what we can still do in the yard.

You'd never know this section of my lawn looked all patchy and half-dead two months ago.

   Tops on the list has been, “Is it too late to plant grass seed?”

   This comes from the many folks who lost patches of lawn but who didn’t get around to fixing it back in prime time, which was right after Labor Day.

   The short answer is, “Probably.” If we get some unusually warm and damp weather for the next few weeks, it’s possible grass seed still will germinate. Frozen ground will shut off much growth soon after, but at least it would be a start. Go ahead and give it a shot if you’re OK with 50-50 odds at best.

   More than likely, normal fall weather won’t allow much, if any, germination. Then you’d be looking at re-doing the seeding next spring.

   I patched in early September — right before we got a couple of nice rains. The seed came up great, and my lawn already looks like nothing steamy happened to it this summer. Just like in drumming and bullet-dodging, timing is everything in lawn repair.

   I’m also getting questions about whether it’s too late to plant some last trees, shrubs and perennials.

   Again, it’s a matter of odds. Cornell University did some nice research a few years ago on this question, and the conclusion was that fall-planted plants survive best when they have at least 6 weeks to establish before the ground freezes for the season.

   In our area, that timing equates to mid to late October as the drop-dead date. I’ve seen landscapers get away with planting in unfrozen soil in winter, so that doesn’t mean you have no chance by planting now. It just means your odds go down.

   The reward behind the risk is that you can pick up some great sale prices now as garden centers try to clear out plants they’d rather not store over winter.

   A third question I’m getting is about pruning, especially, “Is it too late to trim the hedges?”

   For evergreen hedges, you can probably get away with a light shearing if you absolutely must. But a better time is end of winter (right before new growth starts) for most evergreens, and right after next spring’s new growth finishes for spruce and pine. Definitely do NOT shear so heavily that you’re back into the bare wood because you’ll be looking at this nakedness all winter.

   Winter pruning is OK for most leafless trees and later-blooming flowering shrubs, but again, I’d rather hold off until end of winter so I can clean up any winter damage before starting on the shaping and size-control work. Early-blooming flowering shrubs (azaleas, rhododendrons, lilacs, weigela, forsythia, etc.) get pruned right after they flower in spring.

   Finally, a few people are asking, “Is it too late to transplant shrubs and evergreens?”

   Yes on that one. The odds go down from here on out, so unless you have no choice, wait until end of winter to move things. Call me wimpy, but I’ll look for whatever advantages I can get when it comes to gardening.