Gardening This Weekend: October 1, 2026
Here’s my list of the critical assignments gardeners will want to take on between now and early next week.
SPECIAL NOTE:
• If you are growing a poinsettia with the intention of bringing it into flower for the holidays you must begin its period of “long nights” now. The plants produce a flowering hormone at their growing tips – one that is destroyed by even a few minutes’ exposure to light. Either cover your plant with lightweight black fabric completely each night or put it in a room that will be left without artificial lighting. During the daytimes give it full sun. (Thanksgiving and Christmas cacti behave similarly, although they are somewhat less sensitive to exposure to light.)
PLANT
• Nursery stock. Now that we’re starting to receive fall rains this is a great time to set out new landscape plants so they can get established over the winter. Nurseries often have good sale prices as they reduce inventories in fall.
• Mums into large patio pots for immediate color. Don’t rush pansy planting – it’s best to wait until daytime highs are consistently in the 70s and 80s to keep them from getting lanky.
• Spring-flowering perennials can be dug and divided now that we’ve had some fall rains. The list includes violets, oxalis, candyturf, thrift, iris, daylilies, Shasta daisies, coneflowers and many more. If you don’t get it done this weekend, it can wait another week. They’ll be sprouting new roots into the moist soil.
• Ryegrass seed if you have bare ground you want to cover this fall and winter or if you’re hoping to overseed warm-season turf for winter green color. That’s especially important if your lawn gets lots of foot traffic while it’s dormant in winter.
• Fescue to overseed a fescue lawn in Northwest Texas. Annual overseeding is required if you are using it as your permanent turfgrass. Fescue does not produce runners, so overseeding is required.
PRUNE
• Errant growth from shrubs to tidy them up before winter. Save major reshaping, however, for later in winter or, in the case of spring-flowering shrubs and vines, immediately after they finish flowering in spring.
• Mow to remove fallen leaves. Bag to be able to put them into the compost or use as mulch beneath shrubs and around perennials. Do not send them to the landfill.
• Remove spent flower stalks and browned foliage from perennials.
• Dig and remove roses infested with rose rosette virus, roots and all. Leaving plants in place allows the virus to spread to others’ roses.
FERTILIZE
• Fescue turf in Northwest Texas (where it’s best adapted) with high-nitrogen or all-nitrogen fertilizer. It grows in fall’s cooler weather.
ON THE LOOKOUT
• KR bluestem, a forage grass introduced to improve Texas pastures almost 100 years ago, has run rampant over Texas lawns. Keep its seedheads mowed off to slow its spread as you determine how you will eliminate it from your lawn in 2027. It’s going to require a dedicated effort.
• Fall webworms are widespread in pecans, walnuts, persimmons, mulberries and other trees. You can pull webs out of trees where you can reach them but otherwise don’t try to spray them. They have run their course for this year, and the webs will come down as the leaves fall. The trees will survive just fine.
• As you are working with fallen leaves and in beds keep a close eye out for snakes and stinging caterpillars. Both are more prevalent in fall, and they blend in with their backgrounds. It’s best to stir leaves with a small rake before you put your hands into them. Wear gloves when working with shrubs.
• Watch for brown patch in St. Augustine. It infects the grass in circles 18 to 24 in. in diameter. Blades first turn yellow, then quickly turn brown and pull loose easily from the runners. You can see where the fungus has attacked the bases of the leaf blades. Labeled fungicides will stop the disease. Discontinue evening waterings as well.