As the days grow shorter and temperatures begin to drop, gardeners know it’s time to get their green spaces ready for winter. Taking the time to overwinter your garden can protect plants, enrich the soil, and even provide early encouragement for spring growth. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to prepare your garden for the cooler months ahead, ensuring it stays healthy and vibrant.
5 Simple Steps For Preparing Gardens For Winter:
Use these tips to help your perennials, trees, shrubs, and more survive the colder months. Your plants will come back stronger in the spring.
As temperatures drop in the fall, it’s time to start preparing gardens for winter. There seems to be a lot going on when it’s cold in your yard. However, many things happen in the soil until it freezes. Especially the newly planted trees, the perennial parts, the hardy spring trees, all the busy growing roots to put in the ground and even the ketchup worms and earthworms are still working, making things alive containing nutrients for plants.
While nature has its ways of coping with the colder months, you can do a few things to help prepare your plants for winter.
1.Add a Layer of Mulch:
Root implants create a barrier that protects the root canal and helps keep it hydrated. The soil is not damaged by heavy rain or wind in winter.
Choose the Right Mulch: Make use of natural resources such as wood chips, straw, or shredded leaves. Around the base of your plants, apply a layer that is two to three inches deep. Be careful not to pile it on top of the stems as this could lead to rot.
Cover Bare Soil: Over the winter, exposed soil may deteriorate and lose nutrients. By preventing this, mulching ensures that your spring garden has a foundation rich in nutrients.
2.Grow A Cover Crop:
If you are planning to plant in the winter, clear the area and plant a cool season crop or cover crop. “Cover crops are a sustainable and environmentally friendly practice that can improve soil health and overall ecosystem resilience,” says Spoonmore. “Hard legumes have many benefits in preparing the soil for spring, preventing soil erosion, reducing compaction, adding nutrients, reducing weeds and providing pollinators Clover, berseem cover crops such as clover and hairy vetch).” nitrogen increases by adding organic matter to the soil.” In addition, a grass helps improve hardened soil and withstands cooler temperatures.
3.Protect Roses Safe During Cold Weather:
If you have roses growing in your garden, protect them from the harsh winter weather by adding 2 to 3 inches of mulch to the bottom of the plant “Again, consider putting blankets will wrap the plants to keep them from drying out.” Star Roses End says Kristen Pullen, plant and decorative department manager at Plants.
Pullen advises keeping roses in containers outside until the first few frosts, after which they should be brought inside and kept in a cool, dark place, such as a garage or basement. She continues, “Until the final frost has passed, keep the containers indoors, checking occasionally to ensure they do not dry out altogether.”
4.Protect Annuals from Frost:
Unlike perennials that come back year after year, annuals only last one season in the garden and cannot survive cooler temperatures. Some are known as cool annuals, meaning they prefer to grow and bloom in cooler climates. These include ornamental kale, blue lobelia and snapdragon. However, the warm time of year likes to be hot. Zinnias, French marigolds and impatiens fall into this category.
Having floating row covers or old sheets on hand to cover both kinds of annuals during mild frosts will help them last longer. Until freezing temperatures destroy annuals, keep watering them. When temps are predicted to drop into the 40s overnight, place your annuals that are in containers into a garage or other sheltered area. Until daytime temperatures no longer exceed that threshold, you can continue doing this.
5.Clean, oil, and polish tools:
If you’re like us, fall garden cleaning always produces a few surprises—and one of them is often a garden tool you thought you’d lost. Gather all garden tools and give them a thorough cleaning, oiling, and/or conditioning before storing them in a safe place for the winter. Broken garden tools can be dangerous! Be sure to repair or replace any equipment that took a beating during the season.
