Fall is for Planting

Spring is for planting, no wait fall is for planting. As we all look forward to warm sunny spring days and everyone in the neighborhood is out in their yard “we get the urge “. While this pretty normal and we always get a rush at the nursery in the spring. Fall is probably the better time to plant shrubs, trees and perennials. There are several reasons fall is the ultimate planting season in Texas. While in most of the country spring is preferable planting season because of the cold weather stress. Our stress period is normally our hot dry summers. Spring is the time for annuals, hanging baskets and pots. Fall is the time to plant our more permanent members of our gardens. The main reason is it gives the plants the most time to develop their root systems before the heat of summer. Roots are active till around 55 degree soil temperature. Our soils spend very little time below that temperature. Therefore our roots are active throughout the winter. The flush we see in the spring is a reflection of the root growth through the winter. The plant is rebalancing and able to add more energy producing leaves because it has the roots to support them. Fall plantings also allow the plant to control better it’s balance based on climatic conditions as it’s able to adjust it leave area to its root system. A plant coming out of our growers that has been in a high humidity and water availability climate at the growers is now plopped down in a warming and dry climate in our yards. It has little time and margin for error to regain it’s leave / root balance. There’s an old saying “ The best time to plant a tree is today “. While that’s somewhat true if you can take care of it ( meaning don’t delay). The optimum time for planting our more permanent members is fall and early winter. So let’s make a plan and get to planting.