How to Get a Garden Ready for Winter

Those of us who live in areas where winter howls in and ends the growing season in a blanket of frost know that each season brings its own garden tasks. Cultivating, fertilizing, mulching and weeding are jobs best done at certain times although each may seem endless. So, while the chrysanthemums fade, do a few things to prepare your garden for the winter so that it's ready to bloom next spring.

Things You'll Need

• Garden spade
• Cultivator
• Pruning tools
• Compost or organic matter
• Pots and soil or rooting medium

Instructions

1. 

   Cultivate and weed one last time. Pull spent annuals and renew border edges. Trim back perennials like iris and peonies that tend to get raggedy as summer wears on. They'll be back in early spring. Clean out any debris and autumn leaves that might form a home for rodents over the winter. Pick mums and long-blooming annuals like zinnias as long as they bloom. Take any plants you want to keep over the winter in the house before the heat comes on to get them accustomed to the lower humidity of indoor living.

2. 

   Pull any perennials you want to split and replant as the nights start to cool, before the first frost. Their roots will continue to grow until the ground freezes, generally in midwinter. Hostas, peonies, iris and many other hardy perennials transplant best at this time of year. Pull up roots from spreading plants like mint and bergamot to shape the groups for next summer. Remember that these active growers will send out new shoots beginning as soon as the ground thaws in the spring.

3. 

   Harvest late fruits like quince and take in crops like green tomatoes about the time of the first frost. Put the nicest fruit in paper sacks to ripen. Use green fruit for relish and chutneys. Green tomatoes make marvelous mincemeat. Although the growing season stops with the first freeze, the garden will produce as long as the soil is warm and the days are sunny and mild. With the first hard freeze, though, it's time to pick it all and pack it in.

4. 

   Pull late annuals as soon as they freeze and cultivate to get all the roots and remaining weeds out. Add any organic amendments like compost and turn the garden soil so that topsoil gets to sleep and grow rich during the winter. If you've used organic mulch during the summer, good for you! Dig it into the soil to help aerate. After the top of the ground begins to freeze, prune the rest of the perennials, as well as shrubs and evergreens. Use evergreen branches to lightly cover garden soil. The idea is to protect, not insulate. Using organic matter that mats down encourages rodents to build winter nests and lunch on perennial bulbs and tubers.

5. 

   Once the snow is on the ground, start propagating next year's annuals from the plants you've brought in. Clean and sharpen tools for storage so you'll be ready to start again next spring. Start new coleus, geraniums, mosquito plants or herbs all winter long, pinching back the new, stringy growth. By May, you'll have well-rooted plants, eager to get growing in some real sunshine.

Tips & Warnings

• Save those foam rose cones for the middle of winter, after some snow falls. The foam insulates and the sun heats the air inside the cone so that, instead of going dormant, the rose keeps growing tender shoots that will die--and possibly take the plant with them--when it gets really cold.

• Use a good insecticidal soap and ventilate plants well before covering anything for the winter.

• Never use heavy mulch on beds of bulbs. You'll find mouse nurseries but no tulips in the spring.

Resources

• Garden tasks by season