checklist for autumn gardening

 Your Essential Checklist for Autumn Horticulture

Also, DIYers prefer garden time to work, according to Yates, who saw sales of planting materials such as fertilizers grow by 25 percent year on year in the fall.

According to Yates' horticultural consultant Angie Thomas, autumn is the best time for horticulture because the soil is still warm enough to allow plants to grow before winter. “Gardeners have a lot of wonderful things like growing delicious herbs and vegetables in the fall, planting new trees and shrubs, and preparing the garden for winter,” says Thomas.

Thomas is part of a team of qualified horticulturists who provide free gardening advice through the Yates app and online chat. He says March to May is the busiest time for planting questions, and three years ago those questions were most common in the spring. "The last two years have seen a 14.35 percent increase in horticultural questions in the fall. One of the most common questions we get is how to improve soil quality and what to plant in the fall," Thomas said.

To answer the most common fall gardening questions, Thomas shares his best tips for this upcoming planting season:

1. Brighten up your space

Autumn is the perfect time to plan outdoor spaces. The best flowers to plant for flower color include winter viola, pansies, lobelia, carnations, sweet peas, alyssum, and calendula.

2. Improve the health of your soil

Enrich your soil with an organic soil developer such as Yates Dynamic Lifter to provide the best opportunity for the growth of your flower beds and vegetable patches. Yates Dynamic Lifter promotes overall garden bed health by promoting earthworms and germs while increasing water and nutrient retention.

3. Plant vegetables to enjoy

There are a lot of vegetables that grow well in the fall. Plant cold seasonal vegetables such as baby leaf lettuce, silverbeet, baby beetroot, onion, shallot, cabbage, broad beans, cauliflower, or lettuce, and feed regularly every six weeks with fertilizers such as Yates Drive Natural Vegetable & Herb.

4. Prepare your lawn

Autumn is the best time of year to make some lawn improvements. You can start a new lawn with seed or grass rolls. It is important to control lawn weeds before the onset of cold winter weather and to feed the lawn to promote healthy green growth.

5. Prepare for guests

Decorate your backyard with fresh shrubs and trees in autumn shades of red and orange and use fragrant and versatile herbs like coriander, rocket, and Italian parsley in their salads, stir-fries, and soups.