Tips for planting your garden

Your garden's success can depend on when and how you planted it. Here are some insider tips on planting your perfect garden.

As summer slowly starts to wind down, planting conditions are ideal. Plants establish themselves faster in warm soil, and the cooler air temperatures reduce transplant shock. Keep in mind that you still need to provide sufficient water and care for your plants. But this will be easier because the soil won't dry out as fast and need as frequent attention as it does during summer's heat. In addition, the milder weather is easier on you as a gardener, which makes plant care less bothersome.

Many garden centres receive a fresh supply of plants in the fall that have been properly cared for by professionals all summer. Or other plants may have spent the summer on the garden centre lot. As long as they were properly tended, they make good — and often inexpensive — candidates for late-summer and early-fall planting.

Look for signs of healthy, quality plants whenever you shop. They should have proper colour, minimal browning (which is a sign of drought stress) and be free from insects and diseases. After all, there's no need to bring more problems along.

• To give your new plants a fighting chance, mulch the soil around them. This keeps the soil warm for extended rooting. As the weather cools, the mulch also helps moderate temperature extremes and conserve moisture.
• Water new plantings thoroughly whenever the top few inches of soil are crumbly and moist. Continue watering until the ground freezes or plants go dormant.
• Surround tender shrubs and broadleaf evergreens with hardware cloth sunk several inches into the soil. Once the ground freezes, fill the enclosed area with straw, marsh hay or evergreen boughs. You can remove this when temperatures start hovering near freezing next spring.
• So go ahead and do some fall bargain-hunting for plants. It won't be long before those newcomers poke through the ground the following spring.