Fall preparation
Time to bring in marginal hardiness plants now, or put under protected overhangs- they may not like the frequent rains.
**Fertilize your gardens and lawns with a complete organic fertilizer that includes Kelp and Rock phosphate, also use these in each planting hole when planting new plants, along with Yelm worm castings or homemade compost. Rock phosphate leaches out of our soils from all the rains, and Kelp is one of the best materials for an earth garden. For one thing, kelp helps stimulates soil bacteria. This, in turn increases fertility of the soil by humus formation (which feeds on the bacteria), aeration and moisture retention.
**Leave the seed heads on flowers like grasses and flowering perennials for winter interest, but also, because the birds will eat up all this free food
**Use daylily foliage, or leaves, as a mulch around shrubs or in the back of perennial borders, where it will break down and add nutrients back to the web of life underground.
**As far as tree leaves go- personally I just leave them, or rake them into the borders, especially maple, alder, and birch, they break down by spring, the worms and beetles use it as a protective canopy under which they get down to work, and create that healthy soil you admire in the forest. Or you can rake it up, compost it and put it back in the spring- but use it, it’s free, adds nutrients, and quite valuable!