How to Prepare a Garden for Winter

Gardening does not end with the onset of Fall’s cold weather. There are several steps that should be taken before the first snows begin to hit. Taking care of winterizing a garden will not only help plants start growing more quickly in the spring, it can also drastically reduce the amount of work and repair that will need to be done once winter has passed.

Clean Up the Garden

Weeding, mowing and sweeping leaves all need to be done until it’s clear the plants are done growing for the season. Keeping a garden trim and neat is always important, and it’s just as important to maintain it into fall. Uprooting weeds in the fall will help reduce the number that will appear in the spring, and so it is a good idea to keep a close eye on the garden.

Remove any dead annuals and add them to a compost pile or dispose of them. Once their usefulness is done, leaving them in the garden will only lead to dry, brittle dead plants that have to be removed before more planting can take place. Adding annuals to a compost pile will help it continue creating good dirt.

Winterize Trees and Shrubs

Once leaves have fallen, it is easier to see which shrubs or trees are growing too large; pruning back branches will be a simple task when there are fewer leaves to obstruct visibility. After leaves have fallen, it also becomes easier to see if any plants or branches are diseased or dead; these branches need to be removed to prevent disease from spreading throughout the rest of the plant, and dead branches can fall and cause more damage to the plant or garden.

Prepare Perennials for Winter

Many perennials will need to be trimmed back before winter hits; perennials have a tendency to look bedraggled and messy during winter months, so cutting them back will keep the garden looking maintained even in winter. Some plants, however, like Black Eyed Susans and Echinacea, still look attractive during cold seasons and their seed heads provide food for birds. If a garden could benefit from a few remaining perennials, a complete trim is not necessary.

Evergreen perennials, of course will not need to be trimmed for winter; however, because they can get dried out by cold weather and go dormant, it is a good idea to protect them. There are products that can be placed onto the tree itself on order to insulate it, although the most common method is to place stakes around the base of the tree and wrap them with burlap or another type of insulation.

Winter Mulch

Applied after the first frost to prevent pests and disease from lodging in it, winter mulch will protect plants from the worst of winter weather, including snow, ice and the temperature changes of the soil. Dried leaves or pine needles make a good insulation for plants during winter, so utilizing things that can be found in the yard will save money on re-mulching before winter.

Preparing a garden for winter does take some amount of work, but in the long-term, having a properly winterized garden will increase both its beauty and the longevity of the plants in it. Taking care to maintain the garden and properly manage plants when the weather gets cold will alleviate a good deal of work that would have otherwise needed to be done in spring.