Temperatures will soon start dropping, and while we list all the things we need to do in our home, there’s one thing that we should not forget. We need to protect our garden from the cold winter air. Preparing garden for winter is essential because we want to make sure that we protect our plants against the cold winter weather.
There are different ways how you can winterize your plants, and we are giving you 6 of the easiest ways to do it.
Preparing Garden for Winter: Winterizing Perennials
If you want to learn how to prepare perennials for winter, then start by cutting them back a little and then mulching them. This can protect them from the cold air.
Roses
You’ll need to mulch or compost your rose bushes to keep them warm at their base. But what if you have a fragile breed of roses?
Try investing in garden covers for winter so you can make sure that there is some kind of protective layer against the harsh weather.
Vegetables
If you have a garden of vegetables, you’d want to know how to prepare garden for winter, right?
Here are some tips for cool climate vegetables:
- Keep in a polyspun garden fabric under the threat of light frost.
- Make sure to harvest your pumpkins, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and onions before the first frost.
- Brussel sprouts, carrots, and other root crops can stay in the ground after a light frost, so that’s good to know.
- Make sure to cover any root crops that you are storing in the ground for winter with a thick mulched layer of straw or chopped leaves.
- You can start harvesting green tomatoes and store them indoors. You can also harvest fall crops like broccoli, cabbage, spinach, and onions
For warm-season vegetables, protect them by:
- Renewing beds for incoming fall. Make sure to use compost and fertilizers.
- Do sow plants like carrots, beets, lettuce, and other root crops for the fall harvest come.
- If you can, do set out cold crop transplants like cauliflower, Chinese greens, cabbage, broccoli, and mustard
Bulbs
If you have bulbs in your garden, try out these steps to protect your bulbs:
- Go ahead and dig them up and brush off the dirt for storage. Place in a breathable container in between newspapers to keep them fresh for longer. Make sure that your bulbs do not each other. Store in a cool dry place
- Winterizing raised garden beds is another great way to keep them in good condition. Make sure to mulch your beds with evergreen boughs. This will prevent the bulb from being heaved to the surface
Annuals
For those who have annuals, here are some amazing tips to learn:
- Cover your annuals with some polyspun garden fabric when a light frost could occur.
- Cut geraniums, coleus, impatiens, and begonias to root for houseplants.
- Make sure to pull up dead annuals after a deep frost and put them in the compost pile.
- Get rid of any annuals that had developed a fungal disease.
- Leave a 2-inch layer if you think the self-sown seeds will germinate in spring.
- Leave a 3 to 4-inch layer of chopped leaves or other material over your annual beds.
- Make sure you take notes in your garden to remember what’s in your garden next spring.
- Do continue weeding, watering, and watching for pets.
- Plant seeds of annuals that are cold-hardy for extended winter bloom.
Trees and Shrubs
Here’s how to winterize plants, cool-climate trees, and shrubs:
- Make sure to deeply water trees and shrubs before the ground freezes.
- Once the ground freezes, spread winter mulch up to 6 inches thick.
- Also, remember to fertilize what’s been in the ground for at least one year
Here’s how to protect your warm-climate trees and shrubs:
- You can already stop feeding tropical trees in September so they can harden off while dormant in the winter.
- You can plant or transplant non-tropical trees and shrubs and don’t fertilize until spring comes.
- Don’t forget to prune any injured branches.
Bottom Line
Learning how to winterize lawn and start preparing garden for winter is something that all garden owners should practice. We don’t want our precious gardens to suffer the extreme weather and we want to go back and see them bloom after the cold season.