Hello Friends, Neighbors, Fellow Gardeners,

It’s September, time to enjoy the fall harvest of apples, pumpkins, and more!  Here are some garden tips, educational opportunities, and events for September. Events include Brookside Garden’s Wings of Fancy,  Friends of Brookside Gardens Plant Sale,  Fall Lawn Care Workshop, A Forest Journey, Hispanic Heritage Month, Nature Matters Lecture Series, PawPaw Festival, Children’s Day Honey Harvest Festival, Monarch Fiesta Day, Apple Festival and Campfire,  Mill Creek Towne Garden Club’s Meeting Topic: Preparing Your Gardens for Winter, and more!

Planning:

• Keep an eye out for the first frost date. In Zone 6, it is predicted to be between September 30 and October 30.
• It is harvest time and also a good time to start taking stock of what worked well for you this season and what didn’t.
• Take garden photos and make notes in your garden journal.
• Begin planning for fall plantings.
• Start collecting plant seeds for next year and for trading.
• Order spring-flowering bulbs to arrive for planting this fall.
• Order garlic, onions, and shallots for fall planting.
• Check your local garden center for end-of-summer bargains.
• Attend a local garden club meeting or plant exchange.
• Support our local farmers! Visit a local farmers’ market near you. Download Montgomery County’s Office of Agriculture Farmer’s Market Flyer to find a farmer’s market near you.
• Go on a local house or garden tour to see what plants are thriving in other’s area home gardens: http://www.visitmaryland.org/list/gardens-Maryland

Flowers and Groundcovers:

• Begin replanting pots with hardy annuals.
• Plant newly purchased plants.
• Continue to deadhead spent flowers.
• Divide and transplant peony and iris perennials.
• Divide ornamental grasses.
• Take cuttings from coleus and begonias to propagate and over-winter indoors.
• Your summer annuals will be reviving, now with cooler temperatures and some rain. Cut back any ragged growth and give them some fertilizer. They should put on a good show until the first hard frost.
• Remove spent annuals, replacing with hardy mums and fall season annuals. Water deeply.
• Dig up bulbs from your Gladiolus, Canna, Caladiums, and other tender bulbs. Cut off foliage; let dry for a week; and store for winter.
• Cut fully yellow lily stalks.
• Start bulb plantings of early spring bloomers at the end of the month.
• Fertilize established bulb beds.
• Start seeds of pansies, calendula, flowering cabbage, kale, and other fall annuals.
• Pests to watch for: aphids, spidermites, whiteflies
• Diseases to watch for:  Blackspot on roses; powdery mildew, rust, bacterial diseases, fungal leaf spot.
• See UMD’s HGIC’s September Flower tips for more details.

Trees and Shrubs:

• Fertilize if necessary for last time.
• Avoid late summer pruning.
• Transplant trees and shrubs.

  

• Plant evergreens for winter interest.
• Look out for any Poison Ivy vines, which will turn crimson in the fall and be easy to distinguish from other vines.
• Remove fallen, diseased leaves.
• Prune foundation shrubs and trees to be no closer than 1 foot from the house.
• If your conifers start shedding their needles or your spring bulb foliage starts peeking out of the ground, don’t worry. This is normal for our autumn cycle.
• Prune evergreens to get in shape for fall/winter.
• Prune and thin shrubs that have already flowered.
• Water newly planted trees and shrubs weekly or as needed.
• Pests to watch for:  adelgids, aphids, bagworms, borers, caterpillars, leafminers, scale, sawfly, spidermites, and webworms.
• Diseases to watch for: powdery mildew
• See HGIC’s September Trees and Shrubs Tips for more details.

• This is the perfect time for seeding the lawn.
• Apply fertilizer and lime to turfgrass based on soil tests and UME recommendations.
• Plug aerate when soil is moist.
• Begin mowing leaves into turf to add organic matter and nutrients.
• Fertilize tall fescue and bluegrass with 1 lb. Nitrogen per 1000 square feet.
• Cool season lawns go dormant in hot, dry weather. Do Not Water.
• Some grasses can still be planted. Over seeding may be done now through October.
• Keep newly seeded lawns well watered!
• Water established lawns deeply but infrequently.
• Apply pre-emergent weed control such as corn gluten.
• Apply grub control to your lawn.
• Turn your compost pile weekly and don’t let it dry out. Work compost into your planting beds.
• Diseases to watch for: brown patch, and red thread
• Pests to watch for: Grubs
• See HGIC’s September Lawn Tips for more details.

Indoors/Houseplants:

• Bring in tender plants before night temperatures dip to 60 degrees.
• Bring in house plants if you took them out for the summer.
• Take cuttings of plants you want to overwinter inside and place in water.
• Prune potted bougainvillea or hanging baskets that will overwinter inside.
• Bring Amaryllis indoors before a hard freeze. Repot every other year at this time.
• Bring Christmas cactus and poinsettias indoors if you took them out for the summer in preparation for holiday blooming. Fertilize them and put them where they’ll get just 10 hours of bright light per day.
• Remove old leaves, damaged stems.
• Monitor houseplants that are outside for insect problems.
• Fertilize houseplants now that they are actively growing again.
• Repot root-bound houseplants and start fertilizing them.
• Pests to watch for:  aphids, mealybug, spider mites,  whitefly and scale.
• See HGIC’s September Houseplants Tips for more tips.
  

Indoor/Outdoor Insect and Wildlife Tips:

• Start feeding birds to get them in the habit for the winter.
• Change the water of your birdbath daily and throw a Mosquito Dunk (or bits) into any standing water.
• Clean your hummingbird feeders and add new sugar-water every three days.
• Check for mosquito breeding grounds. Dump out any water that sits stagnant for more than three days.
• Switch your deer deterrent spray.
• See HGIC’s September Insect Tips for more details.
• Watch for: carpenter ants, flies, stink bugs, termites, rabbits, raccoons, groundhogs, deer, moles, snakes, squirrels, and voles.
• For more information on wildlife management and attracting wildlife see HGIC’s September Wildlife tips.

Source: University of Maryland’s Home and Garden Information Center (HGIC) and the Washington Gardener.

See below for upcoming local events in September.

Friends of Brookside Gardens Plant Sale

Saturday, Sept. 9th
10 am – 3 pm, and (members-only early hours, Saturday, 8 am – 10 am).
Sun., Sept. 10, 9 am – 12 pm. 

10% discount for FOBG members – you can join at the sale. Plant list here: http://www.friendsofbrooksidegardens.org/s/Plants_2017_list.pdf

A Forest Journey

September 8 – January 2018 | 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Tues. through Saturday | 1-5 p.m. Sundays
Brookside Nature Center, Wheaton
FREE

This rich and inviting interactive exhibit, created by the Franklin Institute, is inspired by the Harvard classic A Forest Journey: The Role of Wood in the Development of Civilization by science writer John Perlin. It sheds new light on the history of the use of wood throughout the world, on forest products (from paper to lifesaving pharmaceuticals) and on the relationship between forests and the benefits of trees.

Brookside Nature Center