November

•    Finish planting tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, crocuses and other spring-flowering bulbs before the ground freezes. Pot up some to force for indoor winter bloom.
•    Finish planting those last few trees, shrubs and perennials by early in the month.
•    Bring in hoses (if ground is sufficiently damp), clay pots, rain gauges and any breakable ornaments or statuary to prevent freeze damage.
•    Reload a few plastic, foam or similar crack-resistant pots with cuttings from around the yard to make a fall display. Materials might include evergreen cuttings, twig of holly berries, dried hydrangea blooms and stems of ornamental grass. Stick them right into the potting soil.
•    Fertilize the lawn one last time before the ground freezes if you didn’t do it toward the end of October.
•    Cut the grass shorter for the last time (about 2 inches) and make sure leaves aren’t numerous enough that they’re matting down the grass.
•    Clean and store lawn mower and garden tools for the winter. Drain gas from all gas-powered yard tools.
•    If you don’t like looking at brown foliage, cut frost-killed perennial foliage to the ground or to a stub, depending on the species. This also can be done in early spring before new growth starts, which preserves shelter for beneficial insects and provides nesting material and dried seeds for birds over winter.
•    Stink bugs, lady beetles and boxelder bugs got inside? Try sucking them up with a vacuum cleaner, then try to locate how they got inside. Caulk, seal or fix any found openings.
•    Make burlap or similar windbreaks for borderline-hardy broadleaf evergreens such as camellia, nandina and cherry laurel, especially in windy locations.
•    Tie up or erect barriers over plants that have been flattened in the past by snow and ice sliding off nearby roofs.
•    Wrap hardware cloth or similar protection around the base of young trees and shrubs to protect from rodent gnawing damage over winter.
•    Spray deer repellents on plants favored in past by browsing deer.
•    Prevent frost cracks on thin-barked trees such as maples and fruit trees by wrapping trunks with tree wrap or by painting them with white latex paint.
•    Mulch newly planted perennial beds after the ground freezes.
•    Finish harvesting the cold-hardiest vegetables.
•    Scatter a granular fertilizer around trees and shrubs after the leaves have dropped. It’s also OK to fertilize perennial beds now. Skip this if the ground is frozen. End of winter is an alternative time for this fertilizer.
•    Cut back on watering and fertilizing of houseplants as they head into their slow-growing season.
•    Keep a net over the water garden until leaves are all down and done blowing around.
•    Install pond heater or bubbler stone in water garden if you didn’t do it last month.
•    Sink a dishpan filled with clay soil in the water garden to give aquatic frogs a place to burrow and hibernate over winter.
•    Mid to late month, start a few paperwhite, amaryllis and pre-chilled hyacinth bulbs if you’d like to time these to bloom for Christmas.