Hi, this is Yolanda Vanveen, and in this segment we're going to talk about how to winterize your garden. So, it's December, and my Dahlias have finally died back. We've had a few freezing nights, and I've had blooms up until last week on them here in the northwest, and so it's time to winterize my garden. So basically, my theory is as long as something's green you leave it be. As soon as it turns brown you cut it out or let it die back, and use it for mulch. So, right here on these Dahlias I'm just going to either stomp em' down; that's the easy way to do it, or you can cut em' down one by one, but I found this works really well, and I'll just bring em' all down and they're going to mulch themselves. So, my theory in my big flowerbeds is I like to use the greenery on the same plants. And a lot of times, just putting a layer of leaves over everything to mulch em' protects them as well. And the winter is a great time to move things around too, so I'm always trimming plants and moving em' to different areas, and if you've got plants that are too big for that flowerbed the wintertime's a great time to move them. And any plants that aren't quite winter hardy, like my Fuchsia, or my Geraniums, or I've got some different plants that might not make it outside I'll throw em' in the greenhouse, or my Mandevilla that will not make it outside, or probably even in the greenhouse; it's in my laundry room. So, I bring all of the plants that are tender into the house, and any bulbs that are tender too; I dig em up and either store em' in crates, or in paper boxes, or right into newspapers, and turn around and plant em' in the spring. So, the wintertime is an easy time to winterize your garden, and I found that if you just go through and cut anything that's dead out of your garden it'll help it for the next year, and the same with my shrubs. If I have any shrubs or bushes that are kind of lanky or Medusa-like I trim back everything that I can; even my rose bushes I trim back, so then next spring they'll come in very lush and full. So, there's a lot of different things that you can do to winterize your garden, and here in the northwest we don't get really bad winters, but in the past I've actually thrown tarps over my Dahlias to protect em' cause' I have lost em'. But now that I've got em' in raised beds, and I mulch them with themselves I haven't lost them in years, and years, and years. So, winterizing your garden is basically cleaning it up. Picking up any sticks or any branches, or cutting back any dead growth. And I leave everything in the garden for the next year, and some things; by this time I'm not even sure if they're a perennial or an annual. I just cut em' back if they're brown, and I leave em' in the ground, because even some of my annuals will come back the next year. So, it's easy to winterize your garden. Just go through and clean it up, and save all your plants that you can for the next year.
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