Country Life A9 • Wednesday, October 10, 2018 • lyndentribune.com
IN BLOOM
Five tips to make the most of autumn in the garden After a hot, stressful summer for our yards and gardens here in the Pacific Northwest, autumn has graciously settled in, bringing cool temperatures, damp weather and colorful leaves. As you begin to wind down your gardening projects for the season, here are a few tips to make the most of autumn’s cooler weather. First, now is the time to divide and transplant many of your spring- and summer-blooming perennials. Perennials like hostas should be divided every few years to keep them vigorous and healthy. In the next few weeks, take time to divide and replant any perennials that haven’t been tended to in the last few years. While many perennials can be divided in the spring as well, doing so in autumn is less stressful since they are naturally going dormant for winter. Dividing in fall will also allow your plants to fill out evenly next spring rather than looking lopsided. Second, take time to fill your pots with fresh winter pansies for the fall and winter months. Chances are that by now you’ve torn out whatever you planted for the summer months, but that doesn’t mean you have to move your empty pots inside for the winter or look at drab, empty pots until next spring. Winter pansies are truly a workhorse of the plant kingdom. Unfazed by rain, wind or frost, pansies will bloom heavily until a hard freeze, then go dormant, blooming again once milder weather returns. Whether you plant in pots or in the ground, I recommend fertilizing with a petunia fertilizer (ideal for pansies as well) two or three times after planting to get them established, then adding some slow-release plant food like Jack’s Classicote to feed through the winter and spring. Your biggest challenge with growing winter pansies is deciding when to pull them out. Since they’ll still be blooming in May, you might find it hard to pull them up in time to get your summer flowers planted! Third, remember the moss you struggled with in your lawn last spring? Now that wetter weather has returned, moss will begin
Ag Advisory Committee meets today Renewed Ag Strategic Plan spells out issues to dig into By Calvin Bratt editor@lyndentribune.com
By David Vos
to grow in your yard once again. Discourage its spread and help your grass thrive this winter with an application of fast-acting lime. Spreading lime is inexpensive and easy and will keep your soil’s pH from becoming too acidic, in turn preventing moss growth and allowing the nitrogen in your lawn fertilizer to properly break down so your grass can fully utilize it. Fourth, it’s not too late to plant shrubs, trees and perennials around your yard. Even though our daytime temperatures are beginning to drop, our soil temperatures are still relatively warm, allowing newly installed plants to get established before winter with minimal stress. Combine the ideal planting weather with fall plant sales at nurseries around the county and it’s hard to find a reason not to plant. Finally, mid-autumn is a great time to plant springblooming bulbs like daffodils, tulips and more. If deer are a problem in your area, you’ll find daffodils to be a great deer-resistant option for early spring color. Or if you’re hesitant to plant bulbs because of their ragged appearance after they finish blooming, plant bulbs in pots and bury them in your garden. Next spring, after the bulbs finish blooming, dig up the pots and move them to a corner of the yard where the bulbs can finish dying back for the year. Planting bulbs this way also ensures you won’t forget where you planted your bulbs when it comes time to fertilize or replant in the future. October’s cooler weather brings with it a fresh beauty in the garden. Make the most of this autumn and enjoy all that it has to offer! David Vos is general manager of Vander Giessen Nursery Inc. of Lynden.
WHATCOM — Over the summer, the County Council approved an update of the county’s Ag Strategic Plan, creating a fresh roadmap for the Agriculture Advisory Committee now to follow. The group resumes its monthly meetings, after a summer recess, at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 10, in the garden-level meeting room of the Civic Annex Building, 322 N. Commercial St., Bellingham. That is a late change of location. Election of a chair and vice chair top the agenda for today, but the heart of new business is to begin to discuss and define agriculture viability in the county and also review immediate priorities, all based on the new Ag Strategic Plan. Other agenda items are to set an AAC work plan for 2018-19 and to review the guidelines of the Purchase of Development Rights program regarding parcels with or without water rights. The Groundwork The plan arose from the committee some 10 years ago, and its update was a project of earlier this year. Still highest among the objectives carried over from 2011 is this: “to ensure a minimum of 100,000 acres of land are available for agricultural use to maintain the necessary land base to support an economically viable agricultural industry.”
Dairying is Whatcom’s strongest farm sector. (File photo) The Agriculture Advisory Committee wants the county to reaffirm this objective and to make it a standing goal of the council, according to a letter sent by chair Larry Davis and vice chair Dave Buys in May. County policy makers should ask “filtering questions” as to whether a measure they are considering will help or hinder the plan as well as an economically viable ag sector and “a delicate balance” between ag viability and environmental objectives, the letter states. It’s also key that the county keep up at least one staff position supporting the AAC and the Ag Strategic Plan, they say. Ongoing Whatcom County programs that should continue are: • the property tax reduction for having open space in agricultural use. • the Purchase of Development Rights program as a voluntary tool for preservation of farmland.
to get going on these two highest priorities: • designating agricultural lands of long-term commercial significance. This is meant to be a strengthening action for designating farmlands, using language contained in a 2016 update of the county Comprehensive Plan. This is part of the priority statement: “When applying (13 listed) criteria, the process should result in designating an amount of agricultural resource lands sufficient to maintain and enhance the economic viability of the agricultural industry in the county over the long term, and to retain agricultural support businesses, such as processors, farm suppliers and equipment maintenance and repair facilities.” • reviewing Agricul-
Digging in To start, the Ag Advisory Committee plans
ture zoning code to ensure that uses support and do not interfere with overall agricultural use of property and neighboring properties. This goal seeks to protect against unhelpful land uses. “There are many uses currently allowed within the Agriculture District through permitted, accessory, administrative approval and conditional-use permits. The AAC would like to review these uses to determine whether uses support and do not interfere with agricultural activities in this zone.” (Agriculture District zoning code is in Chapter 20.40 of the Whatcom County Code.) Short- to medium-term priorities of the ACC, to be See Ag advisory on A10
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