As we slip into late fall and winter, there are still things to do in your flower beds even though bloom season is over.
Soil testing – This is a great time to take a soil sample and find out what you might need to add or change to improve the overall health of your flower beds before the busy spring season. You can go to testing.tamu.edu for all the requirements and details.
Keep a journal or make plans – In your journal, you can record first bloom dates, last freeze, best performers, or plants that did not do so well. Draw a sketch of your garden and label how the plants are arranged. What do you want to add? What color schemes do you like the most? What companion plants can you add to extend or enhance your flower beds?
Take action – Once you obtain the results from your soil samples, you can begin making the improvements suggested. Need more iron or magnesium? The winter months are great times to add ironite or Epsom salt to your flower beds. Nitrogen should be added after the last freeze is gone, usually late March to early April in our area. Additional feeding can occur before blooms begin in late April to early May and again in October to November.
Foliage care and cleanup – Evergreen daylilies will retain their green foliage throughout the year unless ice and extreme freezing temperatures occur. Then, the foliage will become frost burned and/or mushy. Unless overly unsightly, just leave the foliage as is until frost conditions are gone and then you can trim off the damaged leaves. Semi-evergreen daylilies will have damaged foliage with any type of prolonged freeze, but again leave as is and remove damaged foliage after last frost chances are gone. Dormant daylilies will lose all their foliage and completely dieback below ground level. Once this has happened you can remove the dead foliage. New growth will appear at the first signs of spring.
Daylily division – You should divide your daylilies if the clump is bigger than a dinner plate as overcrowding will affect bloom quality and quantity. It is now too late in the year to divide your daylilies, but they can be divided after the last frost. Fall is also a good time to divide daylilies after the heat of summer breaks. Trim the foliage back by two-thirds after dividing to allow the roots to adapt and it’s overall less stress on the plants.
by Malcolm Avaritt, ECMG