Perennials - Perennials should be cut back after blooming and reset this month (October). Perennials set now will be established and ready to grow in the spring. Some of the biennials tend to become perennials in our gardens, and occasionally a half-hardy annual lives on and on.

If you have not yet cleaned up all litter or garden trash, be sure it is done this fall. Do not provide a winter home for insect pests.

Chrysanthemums - October is the month of heaviest bloom for this queen of fall flowers. The most important thing to remember is to provide plenty of water for them. They are heavy feeders (which should have been taken care of in September) and heavy drinkers. Visit the fall shows and gardens of chrysanthemums and write down names of varieties you like and try them another year. The fall shows are wonderful places to see the best in the seasonal flowers. Keep a close check on the weather, and before killing frost lift clumps of chrysanthemums and put in the garage or basement for continued bloom. A few may even be potted and kept in the house. An additional month of flowers may be had in this way.

Soil Preparation - In open spaces in the garden, dig the soil deep, adding a little complete fertilizer. Or plant some type of cover crop and turn it under for a green manure. Soil preparation can go on all year in a garden. Just turning the soil will keep it in good tilth.

Miscellaneous - Take cuttings of herbaceous plants like the donkey ears plant and root them for next year’s garden. Many gardeners carry over plants of all kinds like the donkey ears plant simply as rooted cuttings taken during October. The cutting wood should be firm and seasoned, and not soft and succulent, for best results. Plant pansy seeds for transplanting next month. Pansies are the chief source of bloom in many winter gardens. Continue planting the garden lilies started last month.

Visit the countryside and gather seed pods, weeds and flowers for drying. Many interesting materials are available for winter bouquets, and October is the month for collecting and drying them. Divide and replant peonies, or plant new ones, this month.

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Backyard landscaping is all about making your surroundings look better. When you do it right, it can almost become a science of planting, growing, constructing, and sculpting the area to look its best. All the elements need to be taken into consideration such as climate, presence or lack of wind, lighting, and overall weather conditions to beautify the areas around your house.

The soil that is in your backyard or garden along with the climate will have an impact on what types of plants and flowers you should use. You might also find out what kinds of pests might be a problem and what you will have to do to fertilize and keep everything pest free and growing. Once you have considered these things you will then be able to start putting together a plan of what you want things to look like.

Designing a garden will allow you to pick from a wide spectrum of colors, shapes and sizes of plants and flowers. There are plants that have purple, yellow, blue, pink, and red colors and of course there are also vines and shrubs that have all sorts of looks. You will also need to decide whither you want your trees and plants to be evergreens where they always stay green or whether you want ones that lose their leave at winter time.

Plants and trees can be chosen for functionality as well as looks. Big shrubs and trees can help shade a house from the sun during the summer and hedges can be grown that serve to provide privacy. Natural walls built of plants and shrubs always seems to look better than a wood fence that will grow old and worn looking over time.

For the landscaping of a backyard, on the other hand, other ideas come into play. The more practical use of space is to be considered in a backyard. Front yards are usually for aesthetics and for show. Backyards are living spaces. In a household with children, the backyard could be landscaped as a mini playground for young kids. A house with no kids and plenty of backyard space might consider a wading pool for a cooler house atmosphere. A young couple as homeowners might want an entertaining area for the occasional get-together with friends and family. A busy homemaker might want an herb or vegetable garden in lieu of the flowering plants.

Gardening in May out west is always fun… green thumbers can hardly make a mistake, since nature has joined forces to warm up the soil so that seeds germinate faster. And as the days lengthen, and the sun warms the ground, annuals and vegetables will literally spurt from the ground.

Even cuttings root more easily. Plant foods applied to growing specimens bring almost instant reactions. By the same token, fast-growing weeds can be knocked over quickly with any of the selective chemical weed-killers.

May is a kind month to green thumbers because it seems that the garden suppliers, the weather and soil conditions are such that even a beginner will find it easy to plant his garden. The colorful seed display racks at the garden centers quicken the pulse, and the average temptation is to scatter so many seeds fore and aft of the house, that it will look like a blooming Persian carpet within ninety days!

In the favored rhododendron belts, Puget Sound, metropolitan Portland, the San Francisco Bay region, and the cool, coastal areas around Los Angeles, a big show of blossoms is on all month long.

There is still time to sow summer annuals. Grow those which develop quickly and like heat. Though the list of these annuals is a long one, the most important ones are: zinnias, marigolds, nasturtiums, salvia, portulaca, sanvitalia, annual chrysanthemums, calliopsis, cleome, gaillardia and annual phlox.

For quick camouflage effects, sow some of the easy-to-grow vines. Some, you’ll discover, grow with Jack-in-the-beanstalk swiftness. These are especially good: morning-glory, moonflower, cup-and-saucer, thunbergia, balloon vine.

Perennials can be sown any time from May to the end of August. There are arguments as to whether it is best to sow early in the season or late. But if you are gardening in one of the hot weather sections of the West, you’ll benefit by sowing early. Germination of seed sown in July and August is poor because it is so difficult to keep the soil moist.

Raising perennials from seed provides an excellent opportunity to literally fill up the flower garden with fine items at low cost. Some recommended perennials are columbine, coreopsis, flax, hollyhock, Oriental poppy, Shasta daisy, campanula and stokesia.

Dahlias, gladiolus, tigridias and some unique houseplants can be planted now in all areas where the soil has warmed up. But first you should know all the unusual house plants. In the higher elevations. where the weather is cooler, it might be best to wait a couple of weeks.

Some of the nurseries may still have a few begonia tubers and gloxinia tubers on hand, but you’ll get better results by waiting until later in the month and buying the new crop of seedling plants. Not only will these husky little plants provide you with blooms later in the season, but they’ll develop fine tubers for next years plants.