Welcome to our garden here in zone 6a, upstate New York! It’s mid-October, and we just had our first frost a few days ago. That means things are changing fast around here, and we’ve got quite the fall to-do list ahead of us. So grab your favorite gardening gloves (mentally, of course), and let’s walk through what’s looking beautiful, what’s definitely not looking so hot, and all the projects we’re tackling to put the garden to bed for winter.
Oh wow, that first frost really did a number on things. Our coleus? Completely done. That vibrant foliage we loved all summer has officially given up. And you know what? That’s okay! It’s just the natural cycle of the garden telling us it’s time to start pulling annuals.
Here’s the thing about pulling annuals in the fallâit can be hard, especially when some of them are still looking absolutely gorgeous. Like our Augusta lavender heliotrope? Still stunning! But we know they’re not going to make it through our upstate New York winter, so it’s better to clean them up now rather than deal with a soggy, frozen mess later.
You know what annual is really surprising us after this first frost? Our Rockin’ Playin’ the Blues salvia. It’s hardy to zone 7, and every single fall, we’re tempted to just leave it in the ground to see if it might make it through. We’re zone 6a, so if we had a really snow-covered winter, maybeâjust maybeâthat snow would insulate it enough to come back.
But here’s the truth: we’ve tried leaving them in the ground before, and they’ve never re-emerged. Plus, they develop these pretty heavy root balls that, let’s be honest, we use as an excuse not to dig them out right away! This spring when we were planting, there were a couple of times where we were like, “Wait, what is this root? Oh, it’s from last year.”
Speaking of things from last year, our Rockin’ Round Pride and Joy sedum has split a little bit. We’re wondering if it got too much water this season, or maybe we just need to Chelsea chop it next year. Actually, we’re planning to Chelsea chop ALL of our sedums next year because, well, have you seen our Autumn Joy?
The color is definitely joyfulâthat gorgeous pink-mauve that we love about fall sedums. But the plant itself? Far from joyful. It’s flopping all over the place, so Chelsea chopping is officially on next year’s spring list.
We know a lot of people like to leave their hydrangea blooms up for winter interest, but here’s what we’ve learned from experience: we get tremendously wet, heavy snowstorms here in upstate New York. That snow accumulates on these blooms, weighs the branches down, presses them to the ground, and either snaps them completely or they harden off facing downward. Not cute.
So we go through and lightly deadhead all of our hydrangeas in the fall. Then in spring, we’ll come back and do the proper pruning. The one exception? Our big-leaf hydrangeas. We don’t touch those because we’re not risking those precious flower buds.
All our giant grasses are coming to the ground this fall. Why? You guessed itâthat same heavy snow that would flatten our hydrangeas. We’d rather cut them down now than have them flop into a soggy mess all winter long.
Our castor bean has some frost damage, but we’re holding out for those really cool, spiky seed pods. We’ve been waiting for them to dry out so we can collect seeds. We’ve already cut some and put them in a paper bag to dry further. If that doesn’t work, we’ll just order more next year.
One important note: castor beans are toxic, so when handling them, always wear gloves. Safety first, friends!
Here’s something really cool about October in our gardenâit has as much transformation as May does. Those are really our bookend months for the growing season. Our final frost date is the second week of May, and our first average frost date is the first week of October. Big changes are coming over the next few weeks, and honestly? We love watching the garden shift.
We struggle with lavender because our garden is so moist, and lavender likes it dry with really good drainage. Some people plant it in sand or with rocks at the bottom for extra drainage. Our plan? We’re going to leave it over winter and let it be its own mulch, then cut it back as hard as we can in spring and really keep our fingers crossed. We’re hoping it comes back strong!
Next on our list is unhooking the drip irrigation from our system on the house. The good news is that we can leave the drip lines in place because there are enough holes for water to seep out as it freezes and thaws. The only pieces that need to come inside are the battery-operated timers and the filtration system stuffâanything that could trap water and expand would need to come in.
Our in-ground lawn irrigation system? That gets blown out by professionals because those lines don’t have anywhere for the water to escape.
We’re not expecting intense fall color this year. After six weeks of drought, a lot of our trees are just dropping leaves and calling it a season. But since our Tupelo tree is on drip irrigation, we’re starting to see a little color developing, and this tree gets fiery red, which we’re really excited about!
Also fiery red? Our Lowscape Snow Fire aronia. This is one of those native cultivars that everybody needs in their garden. It has a nice upright habit, glossy green leaves, bright white flowers, dark black berries, and then it looks like it’s literally on fire in fall. (The birds already ate all the berries thoughâthey didn’t waste any time!)
The third big thing on our to-do list is trimming roses. We’re not doing a full prune right nowâthat happens in spring once we see what the winter dieback looks like. But we are cutting back any horizontal branches that could get crushed down to the ground by snow. Those vertical, upright canes? We’ll probably leave those alone.
We do a lot of our cleanup in fall. Some people say “Don’t do it till spring because you want to leave that habitat for things to overwinter in,” and that’s totally validâyou will overwinter tons of good little things in your garden. But you’ll also overwinter tons of bad little things.
We have such a large garden that we don’t want to risk it. You know what? Do your cutbacks when it works for you. If you want to wait till spring, wait till spring. If you want to do it in fall, do it in fall. If you want to do a little of both (which is kind of what we do), then do that! Garden according to your schedule and your comfort level.
We still have some transplanting to do. We want to switch our Sprinter boxwood with our Delft Blue geraniums so that the boxwood is up front and the geraniums can grow up and over them. It’ll be a nice little design shift that we’re excited about.
So here’s what’s on our fall to-do list:
The garden is looking good even with all this work ahead. Some plants are thriving, others are done for the season, and that’s exactly how it should be. October really is one of the most transformative months in the garden, and we’re here for every bit of it.
If you want to see how this season started, check out our full May garden tour. It’s amazing to see the bookends of the growing season side by side!
Thanks for growing with us!
-Eric + Christopher, Grow for Me Gardening
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