How Did Your Garden Grow?

Isn't fall a great season? It's the time when magic happens in the landscape. It's the time that most gardeners will enjoy the crisp, cool air, tend to their gardens without the hot sun beating upon their brow and it's also the time that color magically appears to an otherwise hum drum look at the end of a long, hot summer.

If you live in the Northeast, you deserve applause as it was a tough season for gardeners. A cooler than normal spring, then a few hot weeks of summer, followed by weeks of rain, add in a hurricane and a rogue Halloween snow storm, all sums up to a challenging landscaping year. But, here we are in mid-November enjoying a few higher than normal temperatures and finding ourselves planning our landscapes for 2012.

What did well in your landscape this year through the challenges set upon them? Perhaps you lost a tree or two in the snow storm during the end of October. Did it change your landscape? Did it open up an area that was previously occupied? In some cases, it may have even shed new light on an otherwise shady landscape. New ideas brought on by mother nature is what some are pondering now.

How did your vegetable gardens fair this past summer? More or less of a harvest? Did the heavy rains wash out areas of your gardens that perhaps needs amending next spring?

Gardening has often been considered a "Trial and Error" venture. Some years you win, some years you lose, but in the end, you always learn. No matter what, you learn what did well, what did not. What you should have paid more attention to, and sometimes, what you should have let acclimate on its own. You see what excelled, and what digressed, or literally what just stayed still. Naturally, we will always want more of the things that excelled, but perhaps it's a good idea to find out why the other things didn't do as well as had expected.

At Rutgers Landscape & Nursery our motto has always been "Where you always get the help you need" and that will never change. So, if you're looking at your current landscape and realizing that changes need to be made because of elements beyond your control, or because you simply want more - we are here to help. Perhaps you've been admiring your neighbors landscape where there always seems to be something in color, or you've been wanting to redo your current landscape to bring a four season level of interest, we can help.

After all,  "if you've never experienced the joy of accomplishing more than you can imagine, plant a garden."  ~Robert Brault

And, Rutgers Landscape & Nursery is here to help you accomplish just that..

November Landscaping Tips

November is the month to prepare your garden for the following years beautiful landscape!



Here are some simple tips to help you acheive a healthy, beautiful start to next years garden.

•Adjust soil pH

•Rake leaves off lawn before snow

•Spray broad-leaf evergreens with Wilt-Pruf, water on warm days

•Fertilize trees and shrubs (that have been planted for at least a year) when dormant

•Finish cutting back perennials; mulch perennial garden after ground has frozen

•Plant spring flowering bulbs until ground freezes

•Transplant established trees and shrubs after they've lost their leaves

•Water broadleaf evergreens on warm days