IF I were in your situation, I would Go to Lowe's and buy a nice large (5 gallon min) container and plant fall color--mums, pansies, flowering kale and set it right outside my front door. With luck the pansies at least will overwinter and bloom beautifully early next spring. When they're done, you can put summer annuals in the pot. Then this fall, I would concentrate on cleaning up, and amending the soil in the beds.

What are you interested in growing? Flowers? Veggies? both? It being a rent house I don't imagine you want to invest in permanent landscaping.

But if you want to grow some veggies, it isn't too late for radishes, lettuce, spinach, turnips and mustard if you have the room for them.

Shannon,

Welcome to the Oklahoma gardening forum.

I second Dorothy's suggestions. Also, if you like herbs and can find transplants, you could put several of them into one large container too. That way, you'll benefit from their appearance, fragrance and....if you choose herbs you can cook with, you'll have fresh herbs for cooking.

As far as improving the soil and preparing for next year, when you clean out the beds, you might want to improve the soil by adding organic matter like compost, grass clippings, manure, chopped/shredded leaves (I collect tons of these from late autumn through late winter). etc. Improving the soil in the fall will get next spring's plants off to a great start. After you work the amendments into the soil, immediately mulch the beds heavily with either grass clippings, chopped/shredded leaves or wood bark mulch. The heavy layer of mulch will keep winter weeds from sprouting in the beds.

Nutgrass is a major issue and since you live in a rent house, I don't know how much time and effort you want to put into removing it. The only luck I've had at truly getting rid of nutgrass has involved digging down deep (often 6 to 8") to get the nutlet and all the roots. If you just pull it up, the nutlet remains and sends up new sprouts.

Because we're in a fairly rural area surrounded by thousands of acres of dry pastureland and we have a lot of wildfires around us some years, we always overseed the lawn around our home with rye grass in September so we'll have a green lawn around the house as fire protection during the fall season. I do love having green lawn around the place all winter and visitors to our home always comment on the lovely green winter lawn. (My winter lawn usually looks better than the lawn in summer....at least the winter lawn stays green!) So, overseeding with rye is an option if you don't mind spending the money on a bag or two of seed. If you can find the bags of seed at a feed store or farm supply store, it will cost much less there than in nurseries and big box stores. Of course, you'll have to mow....but if you let the clippings fall to the ground, they'll decompose and feed the lawn and that will help improve it quite a lot.

If you want to plant seeds of some flowers that bloom pretty early in the spring, prepare and mulch your beds this fall. Then, in January, rake back the mulch and leave it off the bed. Scatter-sow seeds of poppies, larkspur and the like in January and you'll have nice blooms from them before you know it. And, remember too, you can plant bulbs in mid- to late-autumn for spring blooms....bulbs like tulip, daffocil, hyacinth, crocus, etc.

As far as holly shrubs.....I have them and love them. Yes, they are prickly, but they can handle our wild weather swings....and if they are near windows, it is unlikely a burglar ever will climb through your windows to burlarize your home. So, on that basis, the ouch factor is a plus.

Good luck. Hope you'll visit the forum often and keep us posted on your efforts to improve your landscape.

Dawn

Shannon, if you like to read a monthly newsletter put out by the Tulsa MG's, email me through my page, mentioning the MG newsletter in the subject.

I can send this month to you, and you can then subscribe if you like it.

Moni... who used to live in Tulsa and went through the Master Gardeners program there.

Well, around here you learn something new everyday. I loved all the ideas, and I've been toying with the idea of overseeding with rye in my lawn area, or what's left of it. Most has been turned into veggies. I think it's great you can grow a cover crop without having to set aside a special plot, as well. You could mulch it in, or bag it for the compost pile or whatever.

Barbara