Prepare Your Garden For Winter

With winter creeping closer, final preparations are needed for yard and garden plantings. Weather extremes and wildlife damage are two main concerns facing landscape plantings.

Winter mulches should be applied to protect perennial plantings from winter weather. These are suggested to help protect perennial flower plantings and strawberry beds from alternating freezing and thawing cycles over the winter, not from freezing. It's best to wait awhile before mulching perennials and strawberries until about Thanksgiving or later so the plants are dormant and the soil is frozen. Straw or evergreen boughs make good winter mulches.

For most perennial flowers, allowing the dead plant material to remain until spring may help protect the crown of the plant, although if the bed is mulched later this fall, it doesn't really matter. Most ornamental grasses provide interesting winter foliage effects when left standing.

Rabbits and mice are the primary animals that may gnaw on tender bark of trees and shrubs in winter. Putting up a barrier, such as poultry wire or hardware cloth, is the best defense. Put a fence around shrubs and secure with a few stakes. Put a loose cylinder of hardware cloth around the trunk base of younger trees susceptible to mouse or rabbit gnawing.

Another problem facing evergreens during winter is desiccation or drying out from the wind and some cases sun. Monitor evergreen plantings for the need to water right up until the ground freezes.

Yard and garden cleanup should continue as needed until snow cover. Continue to mow lawns as needed until top growth ceases. Besides just cleaning up leaves and plant parts, making notes of plant performance, location and problems can help prepare for next season. This is especially helpful with vegetable plants, annuals and perennial flower plantings.

Finally, don't forget about power equipment. It's not too early to check on the condition of winter equipment. Don't wait until the first significant snowfall to realize all the shovels are broken or the snow blower won't start! Also, make sure summer equipment, such as lawn mowers, are properly prepared for winter storage.

Soruce: Bruce Spangenberg, Extension Educator, Horticulture

Winter 2000
Christmas Tree Selection Time Again | Gifts for Gardeners | Holiday Season Pet Hazards | Prepare Your Garden For Winter | All America Vegetable Selections 2001 | Lawn Care Calendar | Bug Bites: Unwanted Visitors That Are Lurking In Your Firewood | Cybergarden Sites | Hort Tips | Hort Shorts | Garlic's Benefits Attract Researchers | Cranberries | Let the Buyer Beware | Roasting Chestnuts | Health and Household Tips | Did You Know?

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