Updated 9/12/2024

Wow! This year’s summer was much milder than we are used to in Central Texas! Once we hit 105 it seemed like we woke up the next day and it was 60 degrees! Here at the nursery, we are still seeing the signs of drought in our soils. Large cracks are appearing in the clay under our oaks and our display garden soil was DRY last week when we dug down to a depth of 8 inches. Hopefully, we will see fall rains return later this month! In the meantime, be sure you’re watering deeply and infrequently.
It’s time to plant! Fall is the best time in Texas to plant trees, shrubs, roses, cold-hardy perennials, and many species of flower seeds! Planting in September, October, and November gives these plants three seasons of mild, generally wetter weather to allow transplants to set their roots before the heat and drought of our summer returns.
The Fall Equinox is September 22nd in 2024. We will have 12 hours of sunlight and 12 hours of darkness!

TO-DO this September:

Landscape

Planting! - Trees, shrubs, roses, and cold-hardy herbaceous perennials can be planted this month! Temperennials (perennials from more temperate climates) should be avoided this time of year unless you plan to heavily mulch them during the winter months. Temperennials include Firebush, Esperanza, Pride of Barbados, and Plumbago for example. True, these plants WILL make it through our worst winters once they’ve established a strong root system, but they’ll need a little extra warmth in the winter if they are planted in September or October.

Dividing – Canna Lilies, Day Lilies, terrestrial Iris, Liriope, and some perennials can be carefully dug up, split apart, and replanted now! If you’ve never attempted to do this before, stop by to pick our collective brain! It’s a very simple task but there may be specific successful methods we can share with you.
Seed Sowing- wild (introduced species like Poppies) and native flower seed sowing is right around the corner! If you’re planning to sow seeds you can begin preparing the soil this month and buy your seeds now! We are stocked up on our favorite seed for Central Texas flowers!

Bulbs – heirloom bulbs can be planted now. Those bulbs that require pre-chilling; Tulips, Daffodils, and Hyacinth, and be purchased now and stored in the refrigerator for planting later.
Fertilization – Fertilizing landscape plants is extremely important in the fall! We can recommend our favorite plant food for fall feeding. Fall feeding helps plants build and store food for spring. We can see 50-100% more flower buds on shrubs and perennials when fed in September and October!

Tree Pruning – Prune any tree at this time! Be sure your tools are disinfected and reclean them before moving to other trees! Consider buying a small chipper/shredder or reusing the wood in your landscape or garden instead of sending it to the landfill.
We do not recommend the use of paint or tree sealer on any tree other than Red Oaks: Live Oak, Texas Red Oak, and Shumard Red Oak.
Oak Wilt AustinTexas.gov

Herbs & Vegetables

We’re stocked up on our favorite herbs and we are adding to our offerings every week now. We are holding off offering sprouted cool-season veggies right now due to the high temperatures forecasted. We’d like to see the highs in the mid-80s. Fresh 2025 seeds and seed sprouting supplies are in stock if you’d like to grow your seedling starts this fall!

See the Wilco Vegetable Planting Calander here.

There’s still plenty of time to build new garden beds and amend your existing garden soil before the cool-season planting begins!

Add 2-3 inches of high-quality compost over your existing soil. There’s no need to till in the compost- nature will do that for you! Visit us to learn more about our favorite composts!

Mulching -After adding a fresh layer of compost, it's ideal to protect your investment with a nice 2 to 3-inch layer of mulch. We LOVE pine straw (recycled pine needles) as a mulch in veggie gardens and we will also use Seasons Hardwood Mulch (partially decomposed wood "chips" screened out of the composting process).

***DIY mulch can be made from shredding fallen leaf litter from your trees. Use a bagging lawn mower to collect and shred the leaves. The shredded leaves can be dumped from the collectionbag and reshredded if you'd prefer smaller mulch particles (or would like to add the leaf litter to your DIY compost pile). Similarly, you can place leaves in a large (30 to 100-gallon) container/bucket and shred the leaves with a string trimmer/"weed-Eater". This is FREE! and keeps vital nutrients and carbon out of our landfills and it's useful on your property!

Mulching performs various functions in the garden:

#1 - Mulch protects the soil from erosion from wind and rain. I will also reduce degradation from the sun's UV light!

#2 - Mulch prevents soil-born diseases from splashing up onto your crop's foliage and stems. Splashing occurs during rain events or overhead watering.

#3 - Mulch helps to regulate soil moisture levels* and slows water loss due to evaporation.

#4 - Mulch can trap weed seeds and prevent them from successfully germinating. Many small weed seeds only have enough energy stored to germinate and cannot push through a 3-inch layer of mulch to receive sunlight.

#5 - As mulch chemically and mechanically breakdown it will release nutrients and organic acids into your soil helping to build ideal soil structure and fertility.

*In some of our more severe rainy seasons (usually late winter or early spring), thinning out or removing excessive amounts of mulch may be necessary to allow super water-saturated soils to dry.

Consider adding Azomite minerals to your containers, beds, or rows. Mineral depletion is real and if you’re growing for your family’s health, adding naturally occurring minerals to the soil can translate to nutrient and mineral-rich food!

Broadcast MicroLife’s Biological Organic Fertilizer like their 6-2-4 Multipurpose before planting and side-dress plantings with the 8-4-6 Ultimate/Veggie Flower. These products are not only designed to feed your plants but also build a healthy microbiome and bring your soil to life!

Do not till existing beds or rows if possible. This will destroy important networks in the soil! Broadforking is ok.

If you are container gardening, it’s ideal to start over with fresh soil. If this isn’t doable, mix in a nice layer (as much as possible) of compost or compost-based potting mix to give your container mix a big boost!

Lawn Care

Consider reducing the square footage of your lawn this fall! We’ve seen so many Central Texas Landscape Designers posting beautiful photos of their recent work with drastic reductions in high-input (money, time, and water) lawns! Instagram is full of local designers posting truly breathtaking work right now. Lawns are finally out of fashion in Texas! We offer Garden Coaching & Landscape Design to help you make design decisions for the future. Click here to read more about these options.

Watering – Continue watering once a week, deeply to achieve one inch of irrigation. ONLY water in the mornings to avoid leaf fungus. Never water in the evenings.

Brown Patch – Can attack all lawn types and is NOT CURABLE. But we can make a plan to deter its growth/advancement. Apply MicroLife’s Brown Patch Fertilizer now (sold out as of 9/12/24 and we are waiting on delivery the week of 9/16), MicroGro Bio Inoculant to build up resistance, and MicroGro Liquid AF (arriving soon).
AVOID any and ALL high-nitrogen fertilizers when combating Brown Patch in lawns!

TARR – Take all root rot. This is a soil-born fungus that destroys the roots of lawn grasses. I can easily take out St. Augustin but can also harm other species. The easiest treatment is using Peat Moss at a rate of 3.8cubic feet (compressed peat) per 1,000 square feet of Lawn. Reapply in 10-12 months. Peat has a pH of 5.5 and will lower the pH of your soil to a range where TARR is not happy to grow. Adding sulfur can achieve the same effects but may be more expensive and the effects may not last as long as peat moss.

Feeding: Fall feeding is the most important time to fertilize your lawn! It’s more important than spring feeding! The plant can build and store carbs for regrowth in the spring. It’s really that simple!

Weed & Feed: Our Corn Gluten Meal is available now and will protect against seed germination for up to six weeks. DO NOT USE this product in areas where you plan to seed wildflowers or winter lawn grasses! In most years, we see a winter storm arrive in mid-October that brings much cooler weather and a good amount of rain. Enough rain to germinate winter weeds! Ideally, you’ll need to apply Corn Gluten in late September or the first week of October. NOTE: if you’ve not used this organic product in the past, the manufacturer recommends using double the recommended amount.
*** Please do not use Scott’s Bonus S Weed n’ Feed with Atrazine.

Water Gardens

There’s not too much to do here. We can fertilize our water lilies one more time, trim away old flowers and lily pads, and enjoy another month of the pond life!

Lotus will be going dormant. It’s very important to let them do this on their own. Never cut lotus stems below the waterline. We’ll divide and repot our Lotus plants in January or February when their growth-tips have hardened for the winter!

If you have fish, koi, or goldfish, you can begin feeding with cool-season food to pack on some carbs for the winter. Mix the cool-season food with your normal food to get the fish’s tastebuds used to the new flavor! Feeding koi foods like kale, peas, blueberries, oranges, and broccoli can help boost their immune system and boost your enjoyment of watching them eat!

Keep an eye on your fish for parasites and diseases as we begin to move into the temperature ranges where these problems are likely to present themselves. Consider building a temporary hospital tank if you haven’t yet.

With, fingers crossed, rain is on the way this fall, adding a pH buffer can help avoid heartbreak if the water pH swings rapidly. It’s not a common problem but it happens occasionally. We can help!

Leaves are beginning to drop for some species of trees! Consider building a tent this year to keep the leaves out of the pond.

Check back for new updates as the season progresses!

Great Gardening!