VIRGINIA BEACH, VA - Fall is the ideal season to evaluate your garden and plan ahead for the next year. STIHL Inc. and garden expert P. Allen Smith offer the following tips to share with your customers to help prepare their garden to withstand winter and have it beautifully bloom in the spring.

More tips & information on the best products for each job can be found at www.pallensmith.com and www.stihlusa.com.

Quick & Quiet Yard Clean Up
For quick and easy yard clean up, use an environmentally responsible leaf blower to gather leaves and other yard debris into manageable piles. The STIHL BR 500 is four times cleaner than the California Air Resources Board's (CARB) most stringent standard for new blowers, according to the Air Quality Management District, and based on information from the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, is 50% quieter than a common leaf blower - something your neighbors will thank you for. Add the fallen leaves to a compost bin. Once they decompose, the compost is perfect for fertilizing flowerbeds.

Plant Trees And Shrubs Now
Fall is a great time to plant trees and shrubs. Plants begin to go into dormancy and the soil temperature is still warm compared to the air creating an ideal environment for root development. And you'll find some good buys. Nurseries often drastically reduce prices on trees and shrubs. Northern gardeners that experience long dormant seasons should plant balled and burlapped material or transplant trees and shrubs in late summer or early fall as temperatures cool and rains become more frequent. Warm climate gardeners should wait until the heat breaks in the fall before planting.

• Begin by using an auger to dig a generous hole, roughly twice the size of the root ball. STIHL makes a variety of augers for various needs, from smaller planting augers good for small shrubbery and plants to larger ones perfect for drilling planting holes for larger tree varieties.
• If planting containerized trees and shrubs, when the plant is out of the container, gently tear the roots to encourage them to grow out.
• Place the plant in the hole, slightly above ground level to allow for settling.
• Fill around the plant with half compost and half existing soil and water it in with a vitamin supplement to encourage root growth.
• Once the hole is filled and the soil watered, add about 2-3 inches of mulch around the plant, being careful not to get any too close to the stem or trunk because this promotes disease and encourages pests.
• If it doesn't rain at least one inch each week, keep plantings well watered until the ground freezes.

Begin Planting Spring Flowering Bulbs
Spring flowering bulbs can be planted anytime in the fall before the ground freezes. They must be planted in the fall rather than in the spring because they require a long period of cool temperatures to spark their growth process that causes them to flower. In cold climates, this can be done as early as late August or September, while in more temperate areas, planting should be done between September and November.