The second week of October is time to think about spring. Now is a good time to plant daffodils, tulips and crocus bulbs for spring blooms and also to bring in or protect your tender, summer-blooming bulbs like tuberous begonias, gladiolas and caladiums.
By the middle of October, cold nights can bring a hard frost, so if you want to try and overwinter geraniums, fuchsias and tender succulents like echiverieas, this is the week to make your move.
Every fall lawn in Western Washington needs to be fertilized. The fall feeding is more important than fertilizing in the spring because our winter rains can wash the nitrogen down to the grass roots. Be sure and use a slow-release lawn food or one that says “fall and winter” on the bag. Do not use a “weed and feed” product, as the weather has turned too cool for the herbicides to work. The month of October also is a good time to aerate and add dolomite lime to the lawn to help loosen up clay soil. Just remember not to add lime and fertilizer the same week. You don’t want the nitrogen and calcium to hook up and get so preoccupied with one another that they forget to do their real job.
If you are lucky enough to own a greenhouse, then this is the time to haul in the tropical plants like cannas, bananas and caladiums. This also could be the winter you successfully overwinter plants without using a greenhouse. It’s not really much of a gamble because doing nothing means these plants will freeze for sure. Make a little effort now and you could hit the jackpot and see your summer favorites still alive in the spring.
Although geraniums (actually pelargoniums) are sold as annuals or container plants here in Western Washington, these are one of the easiest plants to save over the winter. The secret is to put them to sleep so they’ll never notice that summer is gone.
Stop feeding and watering your geraniums now. If they are growing in the ground, dig them up and set the plants with soil still clumped around the roots into a cardboard box. Leave enough room around the plants so that the foliage does not touch. Plants too large to store easily? It is quite alright to prune your geraniums before you store them so they are only 8 inches tall. Store the boxed-up plants in a cold, dry place.
If your geraniums are already growing in pots, just stop watering and move the pots to a cold, dry spot. I have had good luck shoving my potted geranium under a picnic table moved close to the house. I leave a waterproof table cloth on top of the outdoor table and this keeps out most of the light and rain so that the plants hidden below slip into dormancy. The only problem with this easy winter storage idea is that when spring comes the geraniums are pale, weak and dropping leaves all over. They look pretty bad for a few months until warm weather nurses them back into prime form.
Send questions for Marianne Binetti to P.O. Box 872, Enumclaw, WA 98022. E-mail: mariannebinetti@comcast.net.
Fuchsias: Hanging fuchsia baskets can be overwintered just as you would geraniums. Stop feeding and watering, cut back the plants to one half their size and store in a cold but not freezing garage or basement or slip them under the deck or outdoor table. Fuchsias take more winter darkness and go deeper into dormancy than geraniums so you can also bury your fuchsia basket in a hole at least one foot deep. Cover the entire plant, pot and all with a layer of fallen leaves. Hardy fuchsias are different from the hanging fuchsias used in baskets. If you have a shrubby fuchsia that is growing in the ground, don’t do anything now. Pruning hardy fuchsias in the fall can kill them. Instead just rake some fallen leaves over their roots and your hardy fuchsias will make it though the winter on their own. In the spring you can prune back any bare branches after you see signs of new shoots from below.
Dahlias: Once the first frost has turned your dahlias yellow it is time to cut them to the ground. Then cover the soil with sword-fern fronds, a tarp or oil-cloth tablecloth. Anything that will keep out water will keep the tubers dry and you won’t need to dig and store them. It is the wet soil, not the cold weather, that kills dahlias left in the ground.
Other plants and tender bulbs
What have you got to lose? Rake dry maple leaves or layer sword-fern fronds over your tuberous begonias, cannas, bananas and anything else that is not supposed to survive our wet, cold winters. Sometimes nature finds a way to survive and adapt. Simply moving a pot of annuals up close to the house under the eaves so that it doesn’t get wet can allow a surprising number of plants to survive. I’ve had diascia, bacopa, sweet potato vine, jasmine, dusty miller, snapdragons, pansies, alyssum, lobelia, scaevola and even impatiens either reseed themselves or survive the winter in my Enumclaw garden located in the foothills of the Cascade Range. It is a gamble every year but if you protect your plants now, they could do an encore and you’ll celebrate spring with some old friends from this past summer.
Send questions for Marianne Binetti to P.O. Box 872, Enumclaw, WA 98022. E-mail: mariannebinetti@comcast.net.
