Garden Guru: Plant trees now for next summer

By: 
Daemon Coughlin, Oakridge Nursery & Landscaping
We’ve all seen the signs: the band is practicing, football players are back on the field, and school supplies are on sale. This can only mean one thing – summer is over.  
As summer draws to a close, it’s time to start thinking about those projects that you intended to do but ran out of time with kids’ events and vacations over the summer. Now is a perfect time to plant a tree or landscape around your house. The temps are going to start decreasing, and if you get your project done early enough, you can enjoy it all next summer.
Fall is also a great time to fix those problem areas or relandscape around the house. If you have some water issues on your property, you can fix those now so that when the spring rains come, you’re ready and don’t have a flooded basement. If your perennials did not bloom as well as they should have, it might be time to dig them up and divide them. Some perennials need to be split every four or five years; this will improve the health of the plant and increase the blossoms.  
This time of year is also great for planting trees and shrubs. The temps are not as high and we usually get a little more moisture than in the mid-summer months. Another reason is that even though a plant loses its leaves, as long as the ground is not frozen, the root system will continue to grow. This gives the plant an extra month or two of root growth so that when the hot, dry days of summer return next year, the tree will be ready for it.  
Enjoy the last couple weeks of summer and start planning your fall to-do lists.

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