Not only is fall prime time for planting and transplanting garden denizens, it's also the ideal season for maintenance chores. The weather is cooler and the days are shorter, so not only is major work more comfortable, you get to go inside sooner for an evening libation.

What needs to be done and how to do it would fill garden advice columns to the loss of all else. Fortunately, people write books about these things. And one of the best is The Essential Garden Maintenance Workbook by Rosemary Alexander (Timber Press 2006, $34.95).

This is a true workbook and not a coffee table picture book, making it valuable for novice gardeners and experienced ones alike.

Chapters such as "Getting Started," "Shaping It Up" and "Planning New Plantings" make Alexander's book a great place to get advice no matter what stage of gardening in which you may find yourself.

Excellent line drawings are supplemented by useful photographs that will keep this book on your workspace rather than your coffee table. Refer to the Maintenance Workbook throughout the gardening year to hone your skills and reduce your workload. A well-tuned maintenance program is the key to "lazy gardening."

Q How do I care for my Gunnera in a container this winter? I nearly lost it to the arctic blast last spring.

A Gunnera or Dinosaur Food looks a bit like rhubarb on steroids. These huge plants hail from the Amazon valley and are amazingly hardy to the mildest parts of the Puget Sound area. The most common species, Gunnera manicata and G. tinctoria, are features in tropical-style gardens.

Similar in habit, both are fond of water and are heavy feeders. Under good conditions, leaf stems can be up to 4 feet tall and leaves as much as 5 or more feet across. An ancient plant, Gunnera does not bloom in the conventional sense, rather producing a large reproductive "cone" composed of multitudes of tiny green flowers.

Because Puget Sound is at the northern limit of its hardiness, Gunnera needs winter protection whether in the ground or containerized. We just never know if we'll have hard sub-freezing weather. In the ground, plants should be insulated with a pile of dry fallen leaves after the first hard frost. Cut off the large frosted Gunnera leaves and use them to hold the insulation pile in place.

Containerized plants of any kind are more susceptible to frost damage than plants in the ground. Roots in containers are exposed to cold all around. For this reason, tender potted plants should be brought under protective cover such as an unheated attached garage or basement.

Plants can be returned to the outdoors when temperatures remain above freezing. Monitor moisture levels so the soil does not dry out. Another, but less protective, method is to enclose pots on-site within an insulating cage of fallen leaves.

Those fallen leaves that we get just in the nick of time can serve multiple purposes of insulation and fodder for next year's leaf mold and compost. Get out there and rake!

Q Please recommend some durable perennials for fall and winter containers.

A The best perennials for cool season containers are those that are evergreen, holding foliage though the fall and winter. Several perennials are obvious candidates: hellebores, sedges, and variegated ivies and periwinkle.

Less common choices would include Arum italicum. Summer dormant, this is a tuberous perennial that produces leaves in fall and carries through to late spring. The fleshy arrow shaped leaves are marked with silver in the cultivar Epictum.

Another uncommon choice would be variegated water figwort (Scrophularia auriculata syn. aquatica Evariegata). Variegated figwort is a summer bloomer that produces a basal rosette of cr