WEEK ONE

Fall fescue planting season officially begins. For best germination, make sure you have good soil-seed contact. Aerate before seeding, roll afterward, water lightly each day for a week.

To ensure a good crop of big bulbs next year, plant garlic cloves this fall. Be sure to cover the garlic plot with a layer of pine straw for winter.

Apply a weed preventer (Amaze, CrabEx, Portrait, etc.) to Bermuda, zoysia and centipede lawns to thwart winter weeds like chickweed, hairy bittercress and poa annua.

Plant tea viburnum, winter holly and beautyberry to gain fall color from the fruit next year. Birds and animals appreciate the berries as well.

Tree-wound paints used after pruning are not necessary. They can slow healing and may promote decay.

Dig up mandevilla and allamanda vines from beside your mailbox. Cut back to 12 inches tall and keep in a pot indoors for the winter.

WEEK TWO

If you are not sure which end of the bulb is the top, plant it on its side. The stem will always grow upright.

Cut dead limbs from dogwood, azalea and rhododendron. Remove faded flowers from hydrangeas.

The pansy planting season begins now. Plant "six-pack" pansies 8 inches apart; larger plants can be spaced 10 inches apart.

Move patio plants into deeper shade for two weeks before bringing them inside. This will help prevent leaf drop indoors.

Drench newly planted pansies with water-soluble houseplant fertilizer at the rate shown on the label. This will push them off to a fast start.

Make a simple compost pile by incorporating garden soil and a little fertilizer into a pile of leaves. Next spring, you'll have a supply of leaf mold to improve the structure of your garden soil. For faster decomposition, turn the pile over every month or so.

WEEK THREE

Plant spring flowering bulbs such as Dutch iris, tulip, daffodil and hyacinth. Old, crowded beds can be dug up and the bulbs divided and replanted now.

Clean fallen fruit from the ground under pear and apple trees. Remove from the tree any fruit that you don't intend to harvest.

Finish dividing daylily clumps, iris rhizomes and peony roots. Plant them into a well-dug bed immediately.

Raise your mower height one-half inch and enjoy a last mowing of your Bermuda, centipede or zoysia lawn. You can now put your lawn mower to rest for the winter.

Remove faded rose blooms. Clip wayward stems of shrub roses so the plant has a compact form, ready for winter wind and ice. Loosely tie climbing rose branches to their arbor.

Rake out and replace all of the mulch and dead leaves under roses, red-tip photinia and crab apple trees. You'll prevent diseases on next year's leaves.

WEEK FOUR

Regularly rake leaves and straw from your lawn but don't bag them for the garbageman. Use as mulch under shrubs and trees and around dormant perennials.

As chrysanthemum and aster flowers fade, cut the plants back to 6 inches.

Fertilize ornamental cabbage, kale and pansies again with water-soluble houseplant fertilizer.

Weedkiller products that contain 2,4-D and dicamba (Wipe-Out, Weed Stop, Weed-B-Gon, etc.) are effective against wild onions. You can spot-spray clumps now. A different chemical, imazaquin (Image), gives excellent control (but don't use on fescue).

Dig dahlia tubers and cut off the upright stem. Store in a cool indoor room, in a box of perlite, for the winter.

Don't wait for frost warnings to move your houseplants indoors. Temperatures of 50 degrees or lower can damage many tropical plants.