The leaves have changed color and are now falling to the ground. The first frost covered most of the area last night and there’s another freeze warning tonight.

Not exactly what most picture as prime time for gardening. But it never stops – gardening, plants, flowers -- it’s a year-round exercise, especially for horticulturalist Erica Jo Shaffer who made her October visit to The Spark Tuesday.

As leaves are falling, Shaffer doesn't recommend raking all the leaves away and bagging them, but rather letting the leaves blend into the soil,"Mother Nature knows what she's doing. I mean, she's trying to enrich the soil with these leaves that she's dropping, and we are raking them and sending them out because why? It's not tidy, Mother Nature's not tidy, and she's perfection. Besides, that's the habitat for fireflies and other insects and other things. I mean, yes, maybe not all of them are good, and a lot of them are. We're we're interrupting the perfection of what should be happening, which is our leaves are making our soil better."

Shaffer added too many leaves left on the ground can smother a lawn so mulching them is best.

What about bulbs at this time of year? "We can still plant bulbs. Goes up like a Hershey's kiss. You probably catch them on sale now. And I myself do three to five in one hole. I don't do marching, soldier one one one. It's faster. And plus you get bouquets."

Shaffer said it's a good time to prune as well,"If you're pruning your azaleas, your rhododendrons, your lilacs, all those spring flowering things, if you prune them right now, you just cut all your flower buds off. We get all neat and tidy as we head into winter. If you're going to do your boxwoods or your hollies and stuff like that, that's not a big deal. But your spring flowering things you should prune right after they flower."

Erica Jo Shaffer appears on The Spark with gardening tips once a month and will be back the last week in November.

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