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Is this a good time to plant perennials flowers? Or wait till the spring...

In many plants, this is the BEST time - the longest supportive period with reasonable soil and air temperatures. I do all of my transplantation moves of my top hostas in the every September period. I've never lost one, and their shape in better next Spring.

Tho' it does depend on the plant in some cases. Many bulbs go now, but tulips are best if you wait a bit yet so they have little chance of sprouting. It's really a tad late for crocus, but you're still fine as they're very sturdy and I've thrown them in even very late. Fall crocus must be planted in spring, however, and doing so now is a recipe for disaster.

Most perennial plants can go right now with no issues in most locales. For Long Island, there are few exceptions, but if you tell us what you want to transplant, we can tell you if anything you're moving or planting is a problem.

I recently relocated to an area with a lot of compacted soil consisting of a lot of clay in my particular property. This is what I found when planting 2 shrubs recently in front of my house and my questions are as follows:
I plan on planting some bulbs this fall as well as hostas, daylillies, and others small plants around the foundation of my house where there is just river rock on the surface and a paver border now from the new construction home. When I planted the 2 shrubs and dug down 12 inches and deeper I found that the soil was very compacted gray colored wet clay and I am worried about lack of drainage and poor air movement in my soil after finding the way the soil was during the planting of the shrubs. i know that many plants require good drainage. What should I add around the base of the perennials when I plant them? I am planning on digging our larger than needed holes and filling much of the hole back up with a quality potting soil to try and give my plants the best chance of surviving and thriving into the future. I feel that I should also be adding some type of soil ammendments as well fertilizer when I plant this Fall. I am also wondering what the best course of action to take on my lawn and property is knowing that I may have heavy clay soil underneath the black dirt they brought in before laying sod down. I plan on doing a soil test this Fall so see how my soil stands up to allow my lawn to thrive.

As a general rule, don't amend your soil. It's not worth bothering, and you'll create a "pot" environment the roots won't want to leave (and/or can't leave), not to mention causing water problems. They'll do best in the native environment, if they survive it at all--and most actually will. Hostas and daylilies aren't going to have much problem with what you described, both are very sturdy.

I've used common American Orange daylily to hold a hill with poor, rocky, thin soil. They didn't care about or notice the soil type.

Your soil test will show you what will need to be done--if the soil is the same as your lawn, it can be tuned more specifically for perennials, which will tend to prefer a pH from 6.0-6.5 and a slightly different soil regimen than lawns do (more phosphorus, for example).

Nobody ever lost a hosta while we were on-duty!!!

andy10917 wrote: ↑

August 11th, 2021, 6:29 pm

Nobody ever lost a hosta while we were on-duty!!!

Hahaha... or for any reason, ever.

Last fall I ripped half a dozen out with my pallet forks when we put in our patio. I just pulled the whole gob of hostas and landscape fabric over to an old dirt pile and left it there right on top. We've had less than 6" of rain all year here, but they just picked right back up growing on top of the pile where I left them.

I think I saw one eaten by slugs, once. But it was after a pitched battle, and the piles of slug bodies, shot to death in the battle, was pretty big.

Lol, like trench warfare. They just kept coming.