Winter is coming and your garden needs to get cozy for its winter’s sleep.  Put it to bed happy, and it will wake up in the spring happy! Follow these steps:

For your Lawn:

Rake away the Fall: Clean up your yard and pile the leaves in a compost pile and dispose of any leaves that have black spot or other diseases.

Don’t feel like raking? Use your leaves as lawn mulch by chopping them up with your mower. According to the experts at Scott’s Co., chopping the leaves and leaving them on the lawn will enrich the lawn next spring.  Read more here!

Around the Landscape:

Cut Back: Make your shrubs and trees happy by cutting away any dead wood.  Use bypass pruners on limbs and branches.  For softer branches, use shears to avoid pinching the end. For more help in pruning, check out 8 Tips for Pruning and Dividing.

Mulch for Warmth: In the summer, mulch holds in moisture for your soil. In winter, mulch acts as an insulator to keep the roots of your plant at a constant temperature to prevent the freeze and thaw cycle and prevent heaving roots. Use a shredded mulch like English Gardens Cypress or Pine Bark Mulch. For more about mulching, click here for Tips… Tricks… Types of Mulch.

In the Garden:

Remove the Annuals: It’s time to cut down and clear out the veggies, except perennial ones. Dig out annuals and dispose of the healthy ones in a compost pile and discard others. 

Perennial Pruning:  Cut down perennials, except sedum and grasses, to 3 – 4 inches. Your grasses will provide winter interest.  You can cut them back in early spring.

Bulb Care: It’s the bulb time of year! After the first frost, pull your tender bulbs, such as dahlias and glads, and store for the winter. Shake off as much dirt as possible, and cover them with peat moss.  Store them where it is dry and not too warm, such as an attic or basement.

Plant spring and summer-flowering bulbs,  such as tulips, daffodils and allium, before the ground freezes.

Enrich the Soil:

Time to Amend: Add organic material to your soil. For clay, add soil conditioner to your existing soil. For sandy soil, add compost and peat. Check out the Recipes for Great Planting Soil for more instructions.

Down to the Roses:

Trim for beauty: For rose shrubs only. Do not prune until they are dormant. This can be as late as December. Roses die from the top down, so save as much as you can on top, cutting back to three to four feet high. For your other roses, such as climbers and garden roses, save the pruning for spring.

Stop the fertilizer, Spray for protection: Stop using high nitrogen fertilizers that encourage growth until the spring. Protect plants from fungus and disease with Bonide All Season Spray! The spray coats the plant to control disease and fungus, and acts as a smothering agent against insects, such as aphids, mealy bugs, and more.

All of the above tips came from English Gardens’ free seminar: Putting Your Garden to Bed. To learn more and attend one of our upcoming free seminars, check out the schedule at www.EnglishGardens.com/events