5 Reasons to Never Cut Back Your Garden in Fall

Garden enthusiasts often seek organic solutions for pest management, particularly for combating slugs that damage their plants. A nature-friendly and delightful tactic is to encourage hedgehogs to take up residence in our gardens. These quaint, spiky mammals are known to feast on slugs and assist in sustaining the ecological equilibrium of our garden spaces. Yet, before taking steps to make your garden a sanctuary for hedgehogs, it is vital to consider some ethical and practical factors, especially regarding whether your garden is a closed-off area or is accessible.

We’re back with more from Susan Esche’s visit to the beautiful University of British Columbia Botanical Garden in Vancouver in early September. It is open to the public and has many different sections and types of gardens to explore.

As NASA plans missions to the Moon and Mars, a key factor is figuring out how to feed crew members during their weeks, months, and even years in space.

Among all the hobbies you could choose to engage in during your free time, gardening should definitely be top of that list. The therapeutic feel and connection with nature you get to experience even while enjoying the fruits of your labour is one of its enticing perks. But all this might just be an added advantage if you're focused on the beautiful landscapes and serenity it creates.

We’ve visited Susan Esche’s home garden before (A Garden Wedding, the Flowers, and the Deer), but today she’s taking us along to visit a public garden in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Perennials are plants that live at least two seasons, and some can live for many years. Home gardeners often cut back perennials in fall, but not every perennial needs to be cut back, so it’s good to know what perennials to cut back in fall. Or, more particularly, what perennials not to cut back in fall. Read on for the information on fall pruning.

Horse manure makes an extremely good soil improver for the garden. Often combined with stable bedding and allowed to rot down for a couple of years, horse manure is perfect for digging into planting holes or spreading onto the surface of bare soil. Fresh manure mustn’t be used directly on the garden as it can actually remove nutrients from the soil and scorch plants, but it can be added to compost heaps.

Q: I have a beautiful Clematis montana that I planted in my garden many years ago, but it’s now got too large and is threatening to pull down an old garden fence. Can I prune it back hard without damaging the plant? AL, Co Longford

Fall is a great time for garden chores. This is the time to clean up before winter, protect vulnerable plants, and wind down the growing season. This isn’t the right time for all tasks, though. Know what to do with your garden in the fall and what not to do — for instance, what plants should not be cut back in the fall — to best prepare it for next year.

Take a tour of the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens and discover a meeting ground of natural beauty, expert design, and horticultural excellence. Nestled in the picturesque landscape of coastal Maine, this garden offers a symphony of colors, fragrances, and serene vistas that will surely captivate any nature enthusiast. In this video, director of horticulture (and frequent Fine Gardening contributing writer) Andy Brand takes us on a journey through three of his favorite gardens and gives insights as to what makes them unique. This tour barely scratches the surface of what CMBG has to offer, however, with its more than 300 acres and 16 unique gardens connected by well-maintained paths and trails. You can spend days at the garden and still find something new.

REDUCING THE footprint of our lawns has been a key environmental message for gardeners in recent years, since lawns lack biodiversity and involve huge amounts of pollution between fertilizers, herbicides, and the gas used in mowing. But what to cultivate instead? That is the subject of a nearly 15-year native lawn research project at Cornell Botanic Gardens in Ithaca, New York, with some interesting insights.

Q: Now that it’s late autumn, my dahlias are starting to die back. Can I leave the plants in the ground or do I need I lift the tubers and store them in my shed for the winter? I’d much prefer the first option if possible! MD, Kilkenny