editor's note: fall activities—from soil to plants

feature story: fall is the time to plant

savvy advice: build your soil

climate smart tip: use less water next year by planting now

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. ~George Eliot

Every year as summer wanes, we start to anticipate the crisp fall air and splendid foliage in hues of red, orange, and yellow. In this issue, we talk about taking advantage of fall to get a climate smart start on next year’s garden. Learn about the benefits of fall planting (see Liz’s tale of two ferns experiment), get tips on selecting the right plants and discover how building healthy soil is important for climate change.

Many nurseries have plant sales in September and October. This fall, we have partnered with Molbak’s, Sky Nursery and Swansons Nursery to create displays that show plant combinations for dry shade or dry sun. Check these displays for new ideas. As always, we encourage you to pass this newsletter onto friends or family, and we welcome your feedback and suggestions.

Get a Climate Smart Start on Next Year’s Garden…Fall is the Time to Plant

Since our youth we have been conditioned to think of fall as a time to return to more serious things — to move from leisure to learning, from whiling away the hours to getting down to work. In the garden, in some ways, it is the opposite. Trees and plants move from a season of production to a season of rest and rejuvenation. They live off the food they stored during the summer and turn their energies toward root growth. What this means to gardeners is that fall is a wonderful time for planting. It’s also an opportune time to climate-proof your garden, and build its resiliency to possible climatic changes such as wetter winters and drier summers.

Faster Roots to Success

Planting in this time of year gives new plants the chance to establish a healthy, robust root system. With cooler fall temperatures, sugars made in the leaves of trees and plants throughout the spring and summer are transferred to their roots for storage. This abundance of energy in the roots and the wetter conditions of fall are ideal for plants to grow a more extensive root network. When spring arrives, trees and plants have the underground structural support and foundation to be ready to grow.

A Tale of Two Ferns (Our editor Liz did an experiment.)

“In my own garden, I planted a deer fern in the fall and another deer fern in the spring and the difference between the two is remarkable. Both ferns were the same size starting out and came from the same grower. The fall-planted fern had time to establish a healthy root system to support lots of above-ground growth, whereas the spring-planted fern didn’t have the same chance to build its roots. Despite getting more water, the spring-planted fern struggled to keep its foliage and now the fall-planted fern has twice as many leaves and is much fuller.

Climate Benefits of Trees

If you have the space, consider the climate smart step of planting trees this fall. Well-placed trees and landscaping can reduce home heating and cooling costs by as much as 30 percent.¹ Evergreen trees and shrubs on the north side of your home can slow cold winter winds and provide insulation. The shade created by dense trees and landscaping on the west and southwest sides of your home can block direct summer sun. Deciduous trees not only add structure and seasonal color to your garden, they provide shade in the summer, and when they lose their leaves in the fall, allow sunlight through that warms the house.

¹ www.greenbuilder.com/sourcebook/LandscapingEnergy.html

Right Plant, Right Place

One of the most important rules of thumb when choosing plants is to match them to the growing conditions in your garden. For “growing conditions,” think of the three “S’s”—sun, shade and soil. Understand how much sun or shade you have in your yard and when you have it (morning, afternoon, summer or winter). Then get to know your soil. Is it sand, clay or loam? You likely have different combinations of these conditions in different parts of your garden. Once you find the plants that like these conditions, go one step further and look for varieties that are pest- and disease-resistant. When plants have the conditions they need, they won’t need extra water, fertilizers or pesticides.

Now is also the perfect time to look through your garden to see if there are any plants that would be more suitable in a different location. Transplanting in cool, wet weather means less shock for a plant. And again, it is the right time in a plant’s growth cycle. Your plant will have a chance to establish a healthy root system in its new location and be ready to grow in the spring.

David McDonald is an environmental scientist and planner for Seattle Public Utilities. He works with landscape professionals, designers, builders and citizens to create more sustainable urban landscapes.

A Great Time to Build Your Soil and Protect Our Climate!

Every gardener knows that healthy plants grow in healthy soil. Additional benefits of deep, organic-rich soil include lower summer water needs (because plants grow deeper roots and the soil holds more water), lower pesticide needs (soil life helps protect plants from disease), and lower fertilizer needs (plants get most of the nutrients they need from the soil). Here’s good news: building healthy soil is also part of our solution to global climate change.

What does soil have to do with climate change?

Did you know that soil is the biggest “carbon sink” on earth, storing even more carbon than the oceans? Even in a giant old-growth forest, there is more carbon stored in the soil than in the trees. A teaspoon of healthy soil may contain 4 billion individual organisms: bacteria, fungi, etc. This soil life stores carbon dioxide (the most important greenhouse gas) that plants have drawn from the atmosphere, into massive amounts of organic matter in soils around the world.

Can my soil-building practices at home make a difference?

Yes! First, when we compost yard and food waste at home, or send them to be composted through our yard waste collection, we are keeping those organic materials out of the landfill. In landfills, organic materials break down “anaerobically” (without oxygen) and release methane and nitrous oxides to the atmosphere — both very potent greenhouse gases. But when you compost, those organic materials break down “aerobically” (with oxygen) and very little methane is created.

When you use compost, soil life stores much of the carbon dioxide (that plants have drawn from the atmosphere) as soil organic matter. And even more carbon dioxide is captured by the abundant plant growth and the organisms that your compost supports in the soil.

By building your soil you also reduce your need for fertilizers and pesticides, both of which generate greenhouse gases in their manufacture. And you help climate-proof your landscape, so that your plants stand up better to drought and bugs as our climate warms. Your soil also will do better at soaking up heavy rainstorms in winter while holding more moisture in summer.

What can I do to build my soil?

Building healthy soil is easy, and it can save time spent on watering, weeding and tending gardens and lawns all year-round. Here’s how to get started:

• When planting an area, dig or till 2 to 4 inches of compost into the upper 6 to 8 inches of soil. Don’t just add compost to planting holes (that could limit root growth). Try to amend the whole area before planting, to encourage roots to spread.
• Mulch your garden and beds with 2 to 3 inches of fall leaves, grass clippings, wood chips or compost to prevent winter weeds and build the soil for next summer. Fall leaves are free, and they are great mulch. Use them as is, run them through a shredder, or mow over them to make finer mulch.
• Top-dress your lawn with compost. Spread 1/4 to1/2 inch of compost on the lawn by scattering it with a shovel, then rake it into the grass to build the soil. Aerating (pulling plugs with a machine) before top-dressing will help the compost get deeper into the soil.
• If you fertilize your lawn, do it now. Fall is the best time to fertilize your lawn. Look for the words “natural organic” on the fertilizer bag to get one that’s safe for our waterways and good for building soil.
• Start a new bed for next year by “sheet composting.” To turn a lawn area into a new planting bed for next spring, start by laying brown cardboard or six sheets of newspaper on the grass, then cover it with 8 to 12 inches of grass clippings, fall leaves or any compostable material (or just compost). For a better appearance, you can top this “sheet compost” with wood chips or some other mulch. Wet the sheet compost layers well and let the earthworms and other soil life go to work. By May, you can plant shrubs through the compost, or till the whole bed and then plant.

To learn more about composting and building your soil, visit our website where you can:

• Read our brochures Growing Healthy Soil and Composting at Home
• Use a calculator to determine how much compost you need
• Get instructions for building compost bins and more

For free garden advice and information, please contact the Garden Hotline at (206) 633-0224 or help@gardenhotline.org or visit www.savingwater.org.

We welcome your suggestions. Please share them by emailing Liz Fikejs, Seattle Public Utilities.

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Photo and garden credit: Left hand photo in “Get a Climate Smart Start…” article from Stacie Crooks Garden Design.