It is almost Halloween! Will you be scaring the neighborhood trick-or-treaters with your horrifying costume as an invasive spotted lanternfly? How about trying the Lazy Gardener trick of neglecting the dead perennials around your house to make it look haunted? So simple. And scary.
In honor of Halloween, I have a few jack-o’-lantern tips. I usually wait to carve my pumpkin until one day before the goblins arrive. By waiting, I keep my pumpkin preserved and solid until the last minute. Once you carve into the shell, the pumpkin starts to rot.
Consider these additional tips to slow the rot: Keep the stem attached and do not remove the stem end for cleaning and carving. You can open the back to scoop the insides and place your light inside from there. This keeps the squash shape intact and less susceptible to rot.
You can also soak the carved pumpkin for 20 minutes in a bleach solution—one part bleach to 10 parts water. For lazy carvers like me who do nothing until the last moment, you can spray the exposed inner pumpkin flesh with a vinegar solution (one part vinegar to three parts water) every day after carving to prevent the growth of bacteria. Just allow it to dry before inserting your light. Either strategy will slow the bacterial growth but not prevent it completely. Laziest method? Do nothing and let the local rodents devour the pumpkin the next day. With slightly more work, you can bring the organic mess to a local farmer to feed to cows or goats.
I finished planting some cold-hardy, spring-flowering bulbs for 2026 last weekend and dug up my tender, summer-blooming gladiola bulbs. Tulips, daffodils, and other spring bulbs can be planted outdoors for another month, and better in the ground than in your basement. Label your newly planted bulb locations so you don’t accidentally dig them up in a frenzy of weeding next spring.
My gladiola bulbs are drying in a cool, dark place away from frost with leaves still attached. Once the leaves turn completely brown, I will cut them off. I will leave the bulbs in a loose mix of shredded paper. Peat moss will work, too. The medium helps prevent the bulbs from drying out completely but reduces the chance of mold developing. Keep freshly dug bulbs and bulblets attached together for storage. You can divide these in May at planting time.
Take a quick turn around the perennials to cut back browning foliage, but you can wait on some tasks if time runs out. Hosta leaves turn yellow and dissolve to mush over a few weeks in October and November. I wait until a quick raking of the plant sweeps the dead leaves away. Waiting will not damage the hosta plant’s crown, and I can clear it more quickly than pruning off each leaf. Add disease-free leaves to your compost pile.
Other perennials like Geranium or Hemerocallis have new growth emerging from the crown, so trim back the dry brown leaves to reveal the fresh green growth.
And some perennials have not quit yet! My Yellow Sheffield perennial chrysanthemum (Dendradranthema x rubellum ‘Yellow Sheffield’) was still blooming with a bee gathering the pollen on Saturday, October 25. Cutting the flowering stems back by half in July also helped delay blooms until mid-autumn.
Elsewhere in the landscape, I will keep watering newly-planted conifers with a deep watering once a week through November. This keeps the soil moist which then freezes. The water will be ready for the plants at the first spring thaw.
Do one or two more mowings in November to get your lawn down to a two-inch height. This is the best length for overwintering.
If storing bagged soil, compost, or amendments like lime, keep them off cold concrete cellar floors or garage floors. The direct contact with concrete will form a condensate layer that can dissolve the bag and ruin the product. Store these on a pallet instead. Grocery stores, hardware stores, and other large retailers often have a supply of pallets to give away.
Latest autumn tip: Do not cut invasive fruiting plants to use as outdoor decoration. Oriental bittersweet or multiflora rose berries may be colorful, but if left outdoors, birds will take the berries and expel them all over the woods as well as your carefully manicured landscape. Save yourself trouble and avoid spreading these weeds by using the berries (if you must) in your indoor decorations, and then put them in the trash at the end of the season, not your compost. Happy Halloween!
I call myself the Lazy Berkshire Gardener because I don’t want to work too hard in my gardens. I want to enjoy them. I find it easier to observe my landscape and let the compost happen, the water pool up, or daisies to self-sow. I look for ways to do the minimum task for the biggest impact. For example, mulching is better than spraying and much better than weeding all season. I look for beautiful, low-maintenance plants that thrive in or at least tolerate my garden conditions. Plus, I am willing to live with the consequences if I miss something.
