It's time for fall cleanup to keep your garden healthy

Autumn is here and my garden looks ragged. My irises have finally succumbed yet again to iris leaf spot, and my hosta to anthracnose leaf disease. I see powdery mildew on my Echinacea (coneflower), and my daylilies have leaf streak, a disease that turns the leaves yellow and brown.

As soon as we have a cool enough day to work outside without gnats, I'm going to prune away the infected plant parts and bag them for trash. It's important to also gather up any plant debris around the infected plants, such as dead leaves, rotten fruit, and seed heads. Pathogens often winter over in plant debris, and cleaning up now can cut down on the disease spores next spring. Unfortunately, iris leaf spot winters over in the iris rhizomes and the only way to avoid it is to plant resistant varieties.

Weeds can provide an alternate host for some plant diseases, so I plan to scout around the roadside and in some nearby weedy patches to see if I find signs of infection. The weeds need to be thrown out along with the plant debris or they will be pumping out disease spores come spring. If I can get all this done before the trees drop their leaves, it will be easier to spot the problems.

Once we have leaf drop, I'll look over my trees and shrubs to see if they harbor any insect egg masses or damaged wood. I'm trying to remove all the gypsy moth egg masses that I can spot even though the caterpillars travel from tree to tree once they are a couple of weeks old. As with pathogens, you can cut down on invasive pests by destroying their ability to overwinter.

Late October and early November is the time to gather up autumn leaves for your compost bin or shred them and use them for winter mulch. You need to store those leaves in a dry place until spring so they don't all clump up in a wet mess. One way to store them is in brown paper leaf bags you can buy at garden centers. Once you fill the bags, anchor a tarp over them to keep them dry. If you cut the leaves up with a mower or leaf blower, they don't take up as much room, and they compost faster when you're ready to use them next growing season.

Now that you have mowed the lawn for the last time and have your plant beds clear of diseased plant material, how about adding some bulbs for early spring color. After I lost every crocus that I planted, I started using bulb cages to keep out mice, squirrels, chipmunks, and voles. In the war against critters, fences beat repellants every time.

You can purchase the cages from a garden supply or make your own out of hardware cloth. Hardware cloth is sturdier than chicken wire, and also a bit hard on the hands, so wear gloves for this job. Lay out two identical pieces of hardware cloth large enough to hold several bulbs and then bend up the four sides to form two boxes deep enough to hold your bulbs. Add the bulbs to one box and place it into a prepared hole. Place the second box upside-down over the first box and fill the hole with dirt.

Once you are done, try planting some untasty bulbs nearby. Rodents are less likely to bother alliums and daffodils. I always have some daffodil stands that could use dividing. Even chives are off the menu of most critters.

Finally, now that your work is done, mulch as much as you can. It will protect the soil and buffer the plants from big temperature swings. Our colder winters of the past couple of years are killing plants that I used to think were winter hardy, so I'm planning to cover some of my more vulnerable perennials with 1-gallon plastic bottles with the bottom cut off. They will be easy to find and remove in the spring.

Mark your calendar

The Master Gardener spring workshop "It's Time to Plant" is scheduled for March 26, the last Saturday in the month. We had to close enrollment for our 2015 spring workshop because we ran out of space. We are expanding to a full day, and will cover new topics.

Our Master Gardener green line has closed until next March. However, you can reach us by phone at 570-325-2788 or email us at CarbonExt@psu.edu. Someone at the extension office will take your information and forward it to us.