The 4 Best Things to do to Your Yard in Fall

Clean up Pine Needles and Cones

Pine needles, cones, and juniper scales are really tough on lawns, especially if they are left on the lawn all winter. The sap in pine needles and cones is very acidic. 

What commonly happens in Bend, is that when fall arrives, the weather often turns quickly with it. We don’t like freezing out butts off raking pine needles, especially when they fall throughout the long winter months here.

But keeping them raked up is critical for the health of your lawn.

Think about your lawn last year. Did it seem sluggish to you waking up from the cold? Acidity from pine needles and juniper scales could be partially the cause of that condition. 

If this can’t be done on a regular basis, it should be done at least monthly through the cold season to prevent acidity in the soil.

Healthy soils should be at a 6.8-7.2 pH range. There’s a lot of science behind it, but essentially when the pH falls below a certain point, the soil becomes toxic to the turf. It chemically bins nutrients to the soil so the grass can’t absorb them.

That’s why some lawns, no matter how much fertilizer you put on them, they just don’t seem to perk up quite right. Soil pH is usually the first thing to check, and the easies to correct.

Lime can easily be added to the soil and can be picked up from landscape supply stores like Ewing.

As a rule of thumb, 20 pounds per thousand square feet of lawn is a safe, but effective application rate.

Fall Fertilization

There are a lot of competing opinions about this. We focus on techniques that help your lawn and garden look its best while also protecting the health of our local environment.

Those Scotts and other name brand fertilizer commercials make fertilizing your lawn with their product look really attractive, especially for those of us who are in competition with our neighbor to see who can have the lushest lawn, but the truth is, our local climatic conditions don’t really make the use of those fertilizers very wise.

The reason is, they are water soluble nutrients, which are great for summer when you want a quick green. But in our long winter, and sandy soil, the nutrients and the chemicals are washed away long before they are every used or absorbed by the plant.

My advice is to wait until spring to use conventional fertilizer in our area, but if you really want to do something beneficial, then fall is the perfect time to amend your soil with a high quality organic fertilizer.

Be prepared to apply at nearly double or triple the usual rate of your conventional fertilizer. That’s also the beauty of organics. Unlike your conventional fertilizers which can burn your lawn, pure organics won’t do that.

Finally, again, avoid the box store organic options. They usually aren’t that high quality – kind of like dried dog food, but for your lawn. If you’re going to put down and organic winterizer, get one that is sourced more locally such as Redman Organic Fertilizer, or go to your favorite nursery and see what options they might have available.

A fish meal / bone meal mix is going to be among the most expensive, but also will provide the best results because its filled with micro-nutrients and minerals that just aren’t found in most other products.

They are also among the cheapest flowers to plant in your yard if you buy them the right way.

Getting the bag of bulbs from Fred Meyer or Walmart might be tempting, but those are the most expensive ways to purchase. Look for an online resource such as Eden Brothers (https://www.edenbrothers.com/store/fall-flower-bulbs.html) to source your bulbs from.

Check out this article I wrote for an in-depth guide for planting bulbs in Central Oregon. 

Put your order in early (Aug-September) because they will run out of their most popular items. 

Planting bulbs is super easy. All you need is a simple set of spade drill bits, select a size slightly larger than the bulbs you are planting, and a cordless drill and you can plug hundreds of holes for bulbs in a very short time.

Just in case you were wondering, I wouldn’t recommend saving those bits for your next carpentry project. So make sure you get whatever is cheapest and use that.

Bulbs can be planted in flowerbeds, but for a really neat effect, try planting them in your lawn. The benefit of this is there is a lot more room to plant, but the bulbs will be active and spend their flowers, usually, before the lawn becomes active for the spring.

Crocus are usually the least expensive and the earliest bloomers. Daffodils are second, but are quite a bit larger than crocus. Try planting a large bed of crocus and pugging a few daffodils in and around the crocus for a a neat layered effect.

Plant grape hyacinth in front of your crocus and pack densely. Your crocus should double in quantity every year or two. Make sure you don’t plant the bulbs too deep. A good rule of thumb is to plant the bulb nearly twice as deep as its diameter. So a one nice bulb gets planted in a hold 2 inches deep with roughly an inch of soil covering the top.

Those are a few of the best tips I can provide. If you have any questions, feel free to drop a comment below or reach out to us with a phone call anytime.

Happy Fall!

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