Garden Guide - Watering key to successful fall planting

Fall is the perfect time to plant trees, shrubs, perennial flowers and all hardy bulbs from daffodils to garlic.

A good rule to remember for fall planting is to be sure you have watered everything very well. A good root system is essential for winter survival and spring growth. Even lawn trees here need a good soaking before the ground freezes solid, hopefully not before November! Newly planted areas always need water. I have seen one such newly landscaped median between the sidewalk and street in La Grande, and the new plants have been mulched with gravel, which is fine, but with the hot, dry days we’ve encountered, they are already looking as if survival is in jeopardy.

We just completed planting five pounds of garlic, four different types. I will let you readers know next year what our yield is. At least gophers don’t like garlic, or at least that’s what my sources say. We’ll see.

Having just completed a move to a more rural area of our county, I have discovered we are already suffering losses to gophers, including one large shrub that the little rascals completely girdled about six inches below ground, and they even cut off the main tap root! The shrub had only been in the ground about a month and was thriving. So for now, the planting of any new trees or shrubs has come to a screeching halt until we can get tubes built of hardware cloth to completely sink below ground and shield the new roots. I hope none of you have this much trouble with the gophers.

For those of us with a small greenhouse, cold frame or just a protected area, it really isn’t too late to plant some leaf lettuce and spinach. We just decided to plant all of ours in pots, to keep the you-know-whats from eating everything. After doing extensive research, it appears that whirly-gigs actually help deter the little ground dwellers by vibrating enough as they turn that the soil in the gopher tunnels will cave in. If it works well, I’ll add that in a future column also.

Still getting tomatoes, all the corn and beans have been put away for the winter, and looking forward to receiving the seed catalogs for 2010 that should start arriving soon. I hope you have enjoyed this summer gardening season, with many more to come!