October Gardening Chores

It’s a new gardening season when calendars are flipped to October, and there are plenty of chores to be tackled. You are likely to need various fertilizers, possibly fungicides, mulch, bulbs, and any number of other gardening supplies. In the Tampa FL area, Cypress Creek Landscape Supply is the place where homeowners and professional landscapers find what’s required to check off every October gardening task on their list.

Garden Cleanup in Fall

A bit of cleanup is always part of fall gardening. The following are a few of the ways to tidy things up and lay good groundwork a fall garden:

• Start a compost pile for leaves only. To save space, you can run the leaves over with the lawn mower or use a shredding vacuum. Provide your beds with free nutrients and soil by adding shredded leaves.
• Give your lawn a thorough, heavy raking. On trampled or thin areas, add a layer of compost between ½” and ¾” thick.
• Reduce seeds to have fewer weeds to deal with. Do some cleanup around diseased plants. Deadhead the weeds, discarding the seeds.
• Inspect for vulnerable limbs on deciduous trees (those whose leaves fall off). Remove dead and broken branches to help prevent worsening during winter. October is also a good time for pruning evergreens. Wait until February to prune roses and prune Crape Myrtles in March.
• Pest and disease control is an essential subset of fall cleanup, and the environmentally friendly approach is to target the worst troublemakers, allowing others to thrive. A few pests to combat include cabbage worms, the viburnum leaf beetle, and squash bugs. The approach to disease and pest control can be different for each, but a basic strategy is to destroy last season’s debris.

More October Gardening Chores

• In Florida, applications of fall fertilizer are typically allowed, but you may want to check your area to be sure. This is a great time to use a “winterizer” type of fertilizer, since lawns are usually hungry for nourishment.
• Treat for moles and grubs, which are both active in fall.
• The bulbs you look forward to blooming in spring should be planted now. It’s important to plant the bulbs at the depths listed on packaging.
• October is also the ideal time to plant many vegetables, including celery, cabbage, broccoli, onion, and potato. You can also choose from many flowers for fall planting, including black-eyed Susan, sweet pea, and begonias. Herbs to plant in October include basil, chives, oregano, sage, and many more.

Visit Cypress Creek Landscape Supply Today

You can count on Cypress Creek Landscape Supply as a one-stop gardening supply center. We carry everything Florida gardeners need in fall and every season. Anything we don’t have, we will get it for customers, if at all possible. Bulk items include topsoil, fill dirt, and sand. We also carry pottery, fire-pits, stone furniture, and much more. You can browse our products online, visit us at 12734 N. Florida Avenue in Tampa, or give us a call at (813) 933-7944.