Time is right to finish fall garden chores

The tomatoes are gone. The leaves haven’t come down yet. It’s a great time to finish a few garden chores you haven’t had time to do.

First, though, there have been little insects flying around that seem to have some people concerned. The blue ash aphid has begun its annual migration from its summer conifer host to its winter host, ash trees. In the process, this small pale blue gray winged aphid has been appearing recently in clouds whenever people disturb them. They are harmless as they feed on conifer roots in the summer, rarely doing any damage. It isn’t necessary to control them as they will lay their eggs on the ash trees and then die.

Now to fall chores. If you haven’t trimmed your raspberries and blackberries back, now is a good time to do so. Blackberries and June bearing raspberries need to have the canes that produced fruit this year cut to the ground. The old canes will be brownish gray with peeling bark as opposed to the smooth green canes that will produce next year’s crop. This is also a good time to thin out weak or crowded canes. If weeds got out of hand around the patch, pull them now to cut down on your work in the spring.

Everbearing or fall-bearing raspberries need to be handled a little differently. They bear their fall crop on the tips of the canes that grew this year. If the everbearing canes that produced fruit this year are left they will produce a crop next June on the lower part of the stem. If you want them to do this leave them in the patch and remove them next summer after they produce. If you only want a fall crop, wait until spring to cut them all to the ground. New canes will grow next spring for a fall harvest.

It’s time to get tea roses ready for winter. Tea roses are usually grafted and the graft will need protection from the cold. The graft point will be a swollen area at the base of the plant. Begin by trimming canes back by one third to keep them from whipping in the wind. Bring in soil or compost from another part of the garden and hill each plant up about a foot. Stage enough pine needles nearby to cover the hill with a foot of needles after the ground finally freezes. Shrub and ground cover roses are on their own roots so they will not need any extra protection.

Now is a good time to move conifers that have outgrown their spaces or add them to the garden. Dig a broad, dish-shaped hole no deeper than the root ball. Back-fill the hole with native soil so that the root flare where the trunk turns into roots is just below the surface. Water the plant well. If you are planning to get a living Christmas tree, dig the hole now, store the dirt out of the cold and you will be ready to plant right after Christmas