Preparing Your Garden for winter

Preparing Your Garden for winter

During the winter season temperatures are normally very low.  Therefore, you will need to prepare your garden during the autumn, which is characterized by cold nights. When you prepare the garden for winter, it minimizes losses that come with cold weather and frost. With a forecast of frost or even when the weather begins to consistently get cold, it is time to wrap up your garden. Here is how you should prepare your garden for the winter season.

Step 1. Evaluation

All the year round, you have been planting crops and you probably have had no time to review on the production. Whatever did not work or whichever worked poorly, this is the time to replace with high yielding crops.  Fall is perfect time to plant bulbs and bare root shrubs and trees- you can utilize this period to propagate your plants so that you have better coverage the following season.

Step 2. Cleaning up

This is the end of the production cycle of your crops and therefore, you need to clean the garden in preparation for the next season. If you have bulbs and roots, it is time to harvest, dry them in hot sun before you store them in a dry place. For trees and shrubs, the dead leaves should be removed. A compost bin comes handy here, if you do not have one, consider getting it. This is critical in decomposing the biodegradable matter from your garden forming manure that you will need in the following season.

Step 3. Winterizing the shrubs and trees

Much of the landscape is shrubs and trees, fall is the right season to have them trimmed and any dead parts removed. During this period, the leaves have been shed, all what is within the plant is revealed, and thus you can easily remove the unnecessary. This helps the plants to breathe awhile removing the rather dangerous dead parts. Most of the evergreen American types of plants could hydrate other plants and therefore this is an opportunity to send them to dormancy. Your florist will advise on the best ways to do that depending on where you are and the plant types.

Step 4. Cutting the perennials

Most of the trees and shrubs at this time look tired and untidy. Fall is the appropriate time to cut them down so that they do not look ugly on your garden. Here, you should be careful not to interfere with the ones that are attractive. Trimming also helps in reducing the load of work you have to do in spring while cultivating.

Here comes also an opportunity for you to clean up your tools. Garden horses should be drained and stored; all other tools should be cleaned, oiled and sharpened ready for the spring. See the best tools on Igardenplanting.Com.

Prudence requires that you seek the advice of an expert whenever you want to introduce something on your garden and get to know how well it performs in your area and the season. Do not be moved by what you see in the neighborhood, it might not work for your garden. Maximize the production by making the right choices.