Around here fall is the best time to plant perennials. I would amend the soil for planting. Organic methods differ greatly from chemical fertilizing . Organic soil amendment will not give the huge boost chemical fertilizing would give. I think that rule of thumb is meant for chemical fertilizing.

Lorna

The reason NOT to use any form of fertilizer at planting is to encourage root growth and not leaf growth .
Nitrogen encourages leaf growth .
Potassium and phosphates encourage some root growth .
Plants cannot read .
To them , N. P or K is all the same whether it comes from a store bought bag or a pile of manure . Mulch is always a good idea at any time of the year .
Try planting this season the way you suggested above .
Next year try it a different way and compare your notes .
Keep us posted on your gardening adventures .

Since you are in Canada I am assuming you get some deeper soil freezing - deeper frost line - than we might down here. If that is true and if your plants are planted in that frost zone (which most would be I think) then forcing new growth now would be harmful, so no feeding. Better to let the plants go dormant.

Down here we have no frost line so feeding in the fall poses no problems for the perennials.

Dave

Readily available, highly soluble synthetic fertilzers are not good things to put on your garden in the fall because the plants roots can easily uptake those and that could promote new, tender, not winter hardy growth in plants (they may interpret the cooler, moister weather with less sunlight as spring too, who knows) while the nutrients in compost, bone meal, alfalfa, sheep manure are not very soluble and require bacterial activity to release them for the plants to use. That can take some time so most likely the nutrients will not be available to the plants until next spring. Putting compost down in the fall is okay, spreading manures, and tilling them in, in the fall is okay and much better than doing that in the spring.

OK, so it's all starting to make some sense now. 'Twas something I never really could get a grasp on.

In essence, since I don't garden with soluble sythetics, I'll be moving things around and dividing plants for a while. Some gardens need it badly since I'm generally not a 'mover'. I had been planning some major overhauls, but was suckered into featuring the gardens for a tour on August 17th so left things as is. I also don't like working in the heat of the dog days of summer and things are starting to cool off from those as we head into our Indian summer which will last until the end of October.

Dave,
Our soil doesn't really start to freeze until late January at times. That's starting to be the norm. We have warmer winters than other Canadians, although sometimes there can be a glitch. I live on the east coast where the warmth of the gulf stream flows. That's not to say that we don't see -20C during the season. :O)

Our biggest problem here is the heaving of the soil. Last winter there was 7 freeze thaw cycles. Older plants are not affected by these, but new plantings are if not mulched properly so I always make sure they are snug as bugs.

Even in the interior of Canada where the soil would tend to freeze, somewhat like mine would if I did not mulch well, adding compost, or other not very soluble food sources, in the fall will not promote new growth that could be winter killed. If the plants are moved 6 to 8 weeks before the soil starts to freeze they will have a good chance to settle in for the winter, although a good mulch will help a lot if frost heave is a problem (usually only in soils that do not drain well, ie soils that have not been properly prepared for the plants).

Well said, gatormomx2.

Autumn is a great - often the best - time to plant and transplant perennials here in northern NS as well. We plant right into November if we have to - say if we found a plant on sale at the Co-op. The roots will keep developing for months yet. I'd skip the alfalfa and sheep manure and give them compost and bone meal which are slow acting and feed the roots.

Have fun with that garden tour Tiffy and I hope you tell us how it went. Off-topic, or cross-topic, about the lawn edger, do you not worry about somebody twisting an ankle in the ditch it makes, or do you make it very shallow? That is my concern with lawn edgers.

Paulns makes a very good point. Many plants go through a rather intense period of root growth and development in the fall and fall fertilizing is often recommended for this reason, as the roots are more inclined to metabolize soil nutrients. As long as you are fertilizing with organics or low concentration ferts and those focusing on P and K rather than N, fall is a great time to fertilize. You just want to avoid any lush top growth that may not have time to harden off before hard frosts.

Just realized I misread your post Tiffy - brain lag. How was that garden tour anyway?

The organics that you want to plant them with will be fine. Organic fertilizers are metabolized by soil microbes before they feed the plant, so they probably won't be available for the plants until next year anyway. And the N is low for alfalfa meal (compared to chemical ferts) anyway, even if it did become available to the plants immediately (which it won't). Since the soil temps are starting to cool (shorter daylength), the breakdown of the sheep manure will slow down as the soil cools as well. I'd also recommend putting kelp on the plants when you plant, because the micronutrients in kelp help root growth and help the plants get through winter (just as it helps them get through hot summers).

Deanna

Hi tiffy,

Saw some of your gardens in other posts....beautiful! Obviously you know what you are doing either consciously or instinctively but either way you are getting the job done.

Momma Nature puts down Her organic material in the fall ;-)

Michelle

Sorry, Paul. Seems I missed your notes. :O)

The tour went great. Some folks were more interested in how we make our compost, feed our gardens, mulch the beds, and rear the Monarchs than they were in the flowers. Fine by me!! It's all part of the game and I sometimes enjoy talking about those things more that the plants themselves. :O)

In regards to the edges of the gardens, I guess people could twist their ankles, but it's at most a 3 inch dip and people like to view gardens from a distance in most cases. I saw this method being used in the city of Halifax around gardens in front of government buildings such as city hall, provincial legislature on Hollis, Law Courts on Water St., etc. and it seemed like the way to go.

Tiffy your place sounds so southern somehow. And it's funny, we tour people through the gardens here and get the least expected questions too, eg. what is that fungus growing on the wood terrace beam. Huh? Stuff we'd never noticed or thought about before.

I asked about the dip with a different garden in mind. We just installed a public 'Settlers Garden' which is a set of quite small gardens, the whole area totalling about 1/8 of an acre, so people often walk close to the beds. But I've heard that kind of edging is the best, if labour intensive once a year. Maybe dig the ditch and fill it with sawdust?

We planted many of the perennials and most of the shrubs and small trees late last fall by the way, mulched them, and they came through the winter fine.

Paul,
Southern? Well, sometimes I do have zonal envy, but when that first snowflake falls and we head for winter cold sometimes I spend more time outside than in the summer. Love the season!

About the sawdust... I'm starting to think you are actually one of my neighbours and I'll explain why. I use wood shavings and sawdust in my gardens all the time now. (So how did you know?? :O) I get them from a Dow and Duggan log home factory up the road. (Our home is actually one of the originals they built over 30 years ago.) Great stuff. The following photo shows them being used as a garden path. This path was put there in mid 2006 and I haven't had to weed the path much. This is the original stuff 2 years later.

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I made some garden/holding beds last year and this year realized that one was too big for me not to walk in so I made triangular sections enabling me to create walking areas with the wood shavings/sawdust. Works really well as you can see from the photo below.

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Sawdust would certainly work great for what you are proposing and I might even start using it around my edged gardens too. Great idea!!

Glad to hear that all you planted in those beds did well and came through the winter. I'm going full force lately with moving things and transplanting things which have been in pots all summer - me bad!!

Hi Tiffy, I've been wrestling without success with Photobucket to show you some sawdust path pictures from our garden but can't upload photos any more for some reason. Maybe later, or maybe open a different photo account....
So, no wonder people would want to tour your gardens. Very nice hardscaping, and the echinacea and rudbeckia are stunning. Have you seen the green-eyed susans? 'Irish eyes' is one name.

Those bricks and stones make a wonderful raised bed. I'm going to use your idea of spruce logs for a bed, if you don't mind...And we've done the exact same, a lot, with sawdust for paths. A good sawdust source is a godsend. I'm slowly warming to the colour yellow in the garden and have to admit it the fresh sawdust makes a striking contrast for leaves and flowers, esp. purple butterfly bush which I want to show you.

Okay here are a couple. Taken a while back, on a misty day...
Hope you're enjoying the same fall weather as here - finally some ripening heat...

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Hmm, you can see we're not much into deadheading!

I really like the raised bed w/ logs. I plan on reusing downed trees on my families property just like that next year.

Paul,

Nice! Nice! Nice! I am impressed!! That Buddleia is gorgeous! I've got quite a few on the property which I winter sowed. It must smell heavenly walking by your's and I bet the butterflies love it!

Deadheading? What's that?? :O) That's certainly not what I noticed when I saw the photo. My visiting DM says 'It's just beautiful!' in her French accent.

Those spruce trunks fell during some wind storms in the last couple of years helped by Juan a few years ago which weakened them. We just throw them back in the woods and go get them if we want them later. Free stuff is always the best, eh?

That path looks wonderful. I do like the colour of the wood chips/sawdust. It defines the walking area. An organic based yellow brick road somewhat. Mine haven't really grayed much over the years and I think it's because they use cedar too.

The Irish Eyes you mention are stunning plants, but if you like those, you should try Prairie Sun too. I don't have either one - yet - but saw Prairie sun in a garden by the QE11 Hospital in Halifax today and they were show stoppers!

Back to your original question:

Organic fertilizers should be added in fall. They need to be worked over by soil microbes before the plants can use them, and they're not terribly water soluble so they're not going to leach away significantly over the winter.

Synthetic fertilizers should NOT be added in fall, as they will leach away over the winter. This wastes your time and money, and can contaminate local water supplies.

I know 'everyone' says that nitrogen in fall will promote tender growth that will be damaged by winter but I don't know that it's true. Plants that are genetically programmed to go dormant in winter will do so when they receive the proper triggers - daylength, the sun's elevation in the sky, temperature and precipitation. I think that presence of nitrogen in the soil will not affect that.

Now with some plants, they are not genetically programmed to go dormant in winter. They slow growth in fall due to decreased temperatures since plant physiological processes are temperature dependent. But, if they get a shot of nitrogen in fall, they might make use of it to continue to grow. Most hybrid roses for instance, have tropical genes in them to get that repeat bloom, and they don't go dormant. When it gets cold they slow down. When it gets really cold they freeze. Locally native wild roses don't do that. In warm winter areas hybrid roses grow and bloom year round. With these plants, fertilizing in fall might encourage tender new growth that is damaged in winter. But not fertilizing with organics, as they have to 'ripen' over the winter anyway.

Compost, manures, and organic fertilizers are just fine this time of year! go for it.

Tiffy, I thought about you as that hurricane headed for Yarmouth - hope it was more exciting than fearsome.

Thanks for the compliments - you are too kind, as is your DM! Yes the butterfly bushes have a wonderful lemon scent...And I know they're considered invasive down south but here for the first time in about five years I've found selfsown seedlings, which will make nice gifts.

Re the sawdusting, you inspired me to do a lot more of it. People have started to let us know about more sources, since we spread the word. I got a call last week about a guy with a portable sawmill and a big pile of fine, fluffy stuff from spruce lumber - it was good for making paths on a calm day and then watering them.

On open farm day a couple weeks ago we referred to the paths as 'the yellow brick road' to let people know where in the garden-maze was safe to walk without fear of trampling anything - great minds think alike, eh? And a friend - another Rudbeckia fan - asked us to pick up some Prairie Sun six packs at the nursery a couple months ago - I haven't seen them in bloom but will get some next year. We are blessed with a very skilled nurseryman.

Reg pnw your post was interesting and had me thinking about the fertilizing in fall business from a helpful perspective.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:37177}}