Q: I have a pot in full sun that I have a hard time keeping up with watering. I want colorful plants, but even drought-tolerant annuals struggle or are pretty limiting in palette. What else can I try next year?

A: Succulents! Brookside Gardens featured succulent container (and in-ground) combos this year that might provide ideas. You probably have the widest array of options for leaf color and growth habit among tender (not cold-hardy) succulents, but their loss over the winter is no different than replanting annuals every year.

One bonus of succulents over widely-grown annuals like petunia, geranium, coleus, and celosia is that they do well with less water and fertilizer. You also can rely more on foliage colors and plant shape for visual interest, without dead-heading spent blooms to keep a container fresh-looking or to encourage reblooming. In that way, they are also lower-maintenance. Any tender succulents that do bloom will add more seasonal appeal. (You could also mix in annual portulaca as an accent if you want neon flower colors.)

Many succulents are fairly easy to propagate. If you didn’t want to bring them inside as-is for the winter (or don’t have the space for their end-of-summer size), you could root leaves or stem cuttings and retain smaller versions of the plants for planting back outside next year. Indoors, they’ll need either a sunny window or bright grow lights.

While tolerant of cramped roots, succulents will do best if given ample pot space, especially if you’re mixing. If you prefer native species you can leave outside all winter, you could try a mix of hardy perennials like prickly-pear (Opuntia humifusa), woodland stonecrop (Sedum ternatum), and Adam’s-needle yucca (Yucca filamentosa). This will offer less foliage color than other succulents, but still provides interesting forms in the thriller-filler-spiller combo popular with container garden design.

Q: The summer drought did enough damage to my lawn that I need to repair it this fall. Should I get rid of any weeds first, or just focus on seeding?

A: This may depend on weed species and their abundance. Weeds compete with turfgrass, so get rid of any extensive infestations or particularly aggressive species (like Bermudagrass) first. Summer annual weeds will die once it freezes, but if too numerous, rogue them out by hand or uproot them with a hoe. If needed, you could knock them back with spot-treatments of an organic herbicide. This would kill their current foliage so they are weakened and less of a threat to new turf seedlings, even if they regrow a little.

While certain post-emergent herbicide treatments can selectively target broadleaf weeds within grass, there still can be a lag time between application and when you can safely seed. Bear in mind too that some jurisdictions (Montgomery County, Baltimore City) have restrictions on lawn pesticide use, and herbicides are a type of pesticide. Autumn is the ideal time of year to care for and repair a lawn, so focus on that approach and manage more minor weeds at another time.

If a struggling lawn has become about 50% weeds, it will be simpler (and probably cheaper) to just redo the lawn, a process called renovation. That would involve stripping the weedy sod entirely and either laying new sod or seeding, after any soil preparation is completed. We have multiple lawn care and maintenance web pages that you can explore, focusing on tall fescue since it is the predominant lawn grass used in Maryland. For more information, go to go.umd.edu/lawn.

University of Maryland Extension’s Home and Garden Information Center offers free gardening and pest information at extension.umd.edu/hgic. Click “Ask Extension” to send questions and photos.