SHOPPING

Bulbs Crocuses, daffodils, grape hyacinths, tulips, and a host of other bulbs are easy to grow, and pay off with spring blooms. Order from mail-order suppliers right away, so that you can plant by mid-October. Good sources: Brent and Becky's Bulbs (877/661-2852), Dutch Gardens (888/821-0448), McClure & Zimmerman (800/546-4053), and Old House Gardens (734/995-1486).

PLANTING

Cool-season crops Sunset climate zones 4–7: If you plant early this month, you can still get fall crops from Asian greens, beets, broccoli, cabbage, collards, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, lettuce, onions, peas, radishes, and spinach. To save space, plant them in a diamond pattern.

Garlic Zones A1–A3: For best flavor, grow hardnecks such as 'Music', 'Premium Northern White', and Rocambole varieties (like 'German Red', 'Killarney Red', and 'Spanish Roja'). Plant before mid-August; set cloves, pointed end up, about an inch deep and 31/2 inches apart. Mulch with a foot of straw after a hard freeze in late September. Zones 1–7, 17: Harvest after tops die back. Save the largest clove from each plant and use it to replant.

Lawns Zones A2–A3: To get grass established before frost, sow new lawns or repair old ones before mid-August. Zones 1–3: Sow seed or lay sod anytime. Elsewhere, plant early in the month.

Mint Choose varieties you've never grown before; we like chocolate mint, Moroccan mint, and orange mint. Confine them to low, wide bowls, since they spread.

MAINTENANCE

Compost Toss spent flowers and vegetables on the pile along with grass clippings, weeds without seeds, kitchen waste, and manure or old compost. Wet the pile with a hose, and you'll have a fresh batch of compost for the late fall garden.

Discourage fall webworms Last summer, these inch-long grayish or brownish caterpillars seemed to be on a cyclic upswing in parts of the Northwest. They feed inside the protective webs they make on deciduous trees. The trees nearly always recover, but you can limit damage by blasting webs apart with a jet of water from the hose.

Harvest herbs Cut sprigs from Mediterranean herbs such as oregano, rosemary, sage, and thyme early in the morning, when the oil content of their leaves is highest. You can use them fresh or dried. To dry them, scatter sprigs on a piece of screen, then place them outdoors in a warm, shaded spot.

Prune cane berries On June-bearing blackberries and raspberries, remove canes that produced fruit this season. On everbearing plants, cut back by half any canes that have already borne fruit.

photo by Thomas J. Story

Lime foliage and lemon yellow flowers look especially cool together on a hot August day. To refresh a sunny or partly shaded patio, pot up our favorite "lemonade" combo, with the tallest plant (accent) toward the back of an 18-inch container, the filler in the center, and the spillers around the front edges.

Accent Salvia elegans 'Golden Delicious': chartreuse leaves, red blooms in late summer. 1 plant.

Filler Sweet flag ( Acorus gramineus 'Ogon'): golden yellow leaves. 1 plant.

Spillers Superbells 'Yellow Chiffon' calibrachoa: pale yellow blooms. 3 plants. Creeping jenny ( Lysimachia nummularia 'Goldilocks'): light green leaves. 1 plant.

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