Gardening This Weekend: November 27, 2025

In case you have a little time between shopping outings, let’s list things you might want to get done in your landscape and garden. I’ll keep the list brief.

PLANT
• Pansies, violas, pinks, ornamental cabbage and kale, snapdragons and other winter annual color. Plant in well-draining beds prepared with several inches of organic matter.
• Daffodils, jonquils, narcissus and grape hyacinth bulbs. Because soils have been so warm recently, leave tulips and Dutch hyacinths chilling in the refrigerator for at least another 20 days before planting into the garden. (That’s even if they’ve had the required 45 days at 45 degrees.)

PRUNE
• Lawn to remove fallen leaves. Bag them and use them as mulch or in compost pile. Do not send them to the landfill. They’re too valuable for your gardens, plus landfills are all filling up too rapidly. They don’t want the leaves and grass clippings.
• Shrubs to correct erratic, dead, or damaged growth, but save major reshaping for late winter (January).

FERTILIZE
• Pansies and other winter color plants with water-soluble, high-nitrogen food each time that you water them.
• Ryegrass overseedings with high-nitrogen lawn food. Apply at half the rate recommended for turf. Water into the soil deeply.
• Compost pile with one cup of ammonium sulfate per cubic yard of compost each time that you turn and blend it (approximately monthly).

ON THE LOOKOUT
• Broadleafed weeds in turf, including dandelions, clover, henbit and chickweed. Apply herbicide containing 2,4-D soon, before temperatures start to drop dramatically. Read and follow label directions carefully.
• Mistletoe should be removed from tree branches as soon as you see it, preferably while it is still young.
• Aphids congregating on tender new growth can be knocked off with hard stream of water.