10/02/2026
Great tips
🌿 OCTOBER GARDENING TIPS 🌿
Things to do in your yard or garden.
• Clean out flower and vegetable gardens to discourage diseases and pests from overwintering in your beds.
• Rake leaves from ditches to make way for the rain that is coming.
• Re-program drip system timers for cooler weather and rain.
• Update your garden journal, noting what worked and what did not work. Look around at the fall color you might want to plant for next year
• Mulch or mow leaves on your lawn and add to your compost pile - either an existing one or a new one.
• Apply a thick layer of compost to enrich your soil for spring planting.
• Apply mulch to bulbs and tubers left in the ground.
• Deadhead spent flowers.
• Lift tuberous begonias.
• Divide lilies.
• Cut back and divide spent perennial phlox asters.
• Cover compost bins with plastic tarps once the rains begin.
• Clean out bird houses and bird feeders.
• Cut old berry canes and tie the new canes to support wires. It is easy to identify the old canes now - they are turning brown.
• Finish pruning any fruit trees after the last fruit is removed.
Fertilize
• Established lawns
• Indoor plants
• Persimmons and pomegranates before dormancy
• Chrysanthemums
Spray
• First dormant spray of stone fruits when leaves fall.
• Citrus with copper for brown rot. Pay special attention to lower branches and ground under tree.
• Cane berries with copper before winter rains.
ucanr.edu/
Photo credit: Pam Elias (Persimmon tree at UCR Botanic Gardens)
