Putting Gardens To Bed For Winter

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When fall arrives, you need to think about putting your gardens to bed for winter. October is often the month when gardeners begin preparing their gardens for the winter months.

You want your garden space to be ready for spring when it arrives. And getting your garden spaces cleaned up now means you start with a fresh slate come springtime.

Collect dead leaves and stems and dispose of them, as they may cause disease. Clean your garden spaces thoroughly, removing all loose debris.

If you miss color, go to the nursery and buy pansies and chrysanthemums. They will look great with a few pumpkins scattered about for Halloween.

It’s time to prune some of the shrubs and bushes.

If you have houseplants outside, it’s time to bring them inside. You probably want to check and make sure no bugs are burrowing down in the pots. I like to repot my houseplants before bringing them inside, just to be safe.

Preparing Perennials For Fall:

• Water your perennials and flowering shrubs in the fall.
• Once the ground has frozen, cut perennials back to 3 inches high and then mulch around them.
• If you want to add a new flower bed come spring, cover that area now with mulch or heavy plastic. This will discourage growth as the ground warms.
• Move pots of chrysanthemums to a sheltered spot when their flowers have died. Water them well and cover them with a thick layer of straw.

Overwintering Geraniums:

• Geraniums (or pelargoniums) are of South African origin, and there, they have a three-month dormant period. Keep them well-watered before dormancy.
• If you have a cool place in your home (around 50 degrees), you can overwinter them in their pots inside. Give them very little water. When spring arrives, bring them into a warm place and water them. When they form buds, repot and prune heavily.
• Geraniums do best in plastic or glazed pots with good drainage at the bottom. You can overwinter them as house plants without letting them go dormant. However, they will then be deprived of a winter rest period.

Putting Roses To Bed In The Fall:

• You can water roses regularly through fall. There is no need to fertilize starting six weeks before the first frost.
• Remove any dead parts
• Mulch after the first frost
• Before temperatures drop below freezing, carefully pull down the climbing and tea roses. Lay them flat on the ground and cover them with pine branches or a layer of mulch.

Come spring, after many days of cold and gloomy weather, we gardeners will be itching to get back out into our gardens.

If you decide to plant tulip bulbs in the fall months, remember to have the pointed tip of the bulb facing upward.

You can rest through winter knowing you’ve taken care of the garden chores for fall and will be ready for spring planting.