IT WILL SOON BE TIME ONCE AGAIN TO BID A FOND FAREWELL TO THE GROWING SEASON and put our gardens and landscapes to bed until spring. Along with cool temperatures and reduced daylight, late fall brings its own set of gardening chores to be tackled before winter’s snow begins to fly. Gardener’s need to tidy up borders and beds, wrap up any remaining fall planting, provide winter protection for tender plants, and properly clean and store their tools and equipment.
Cut back perennials…or not
Once the first hard frost hits and the foliage on your herbaceous perennials has completely withered, you can go ahead and cut them back to the ground. Don’t be in too big a rush to cut back plants with any green top growth remaining as they are still performing photosynthesis and transporting energy to their roots to be stored until spring.
Also, keep in mind that leaving the top growth of perennials in place until spring can sometimes be beneficial. Mums, for example, are much more likely to make it through the cold winter when their above-ground growth is left to act as a natural mulch.
For another example, if you’d like your garden or landscape to provide a little winter interest, you might choose to avoid cutting back certain plants if they feature attractive seed heads, such as ornamental grasses, or if they have seeds or fruits that might attract foraging winter-weary birds.
Consider what you’re composting
If you compost, much of your garden debris can be added directly to the pile. An exception should be made in the case of plants that were diseased or infested with pests during the growing season. Allowing these to overwinter in your compost pile or planting beds is an invitation for the disease/pest to return for an encore in your garden next spring.
Go ahead and plant
It’s getting late in the season for fall planting, but there’s still time. As long as the soil is workable, you can plant many varieties of trees, shrubs, hardy perennials, and spring-flowering bulbs. They won’t have much time to establish a good root system before winter sets in, so be sure to water them well right up until the ground freezes and give them a nice insulating blanket of mulch.
Keep in mind, however, that some plants will overwinter poorly if planted too late in fall and are, therefore, best left until spring. Examples include broadleaf evergreens, such as rhododendrons, azaleas, hollies, and boxwoods, as well as tender perennials. In contrast to deciduous trees and shrubs (those that shed their leaves in autumn) broadleaf evergreens continue to lose moisture through their foliage all winter long and tend to dry out easily. Couple that with the fact that late-planted specimens don’t have much time to develop a good root system, and you can see why their odds of winter survival are shaky.
Make the most of markdowns
This is a great time of year to take advantage of marked-down nursery stock to fill in those empty spaces in your garden or landscape. In late fall, garden centers commonly offer good, viable plant material at a significant discount—often half or 25 percent of its original cost. The plants may not look like much in the pot at this point, but they’ll likely come back in spring just as well.
If you’re not too particular about the variety or color of spring-flowering bulbs, you can often get terrific deals on large quantities of “mystery bulbs”—those that fall out of the bulk bins as customers rummage through them or bagged bulbs that have lost their labels. You can still distinguish a tulip from a hyacinth or a crocus from a narcissus, but the colors and blooming periods will be anyone’s guess. If you’re looking to naturalize a remote corner of your garden on a low budget, mystery bulbs may be a good solution.
Put winter protection in place
As alluded earlier, mulch will be your biggest ally in preventing winter casualties. All plants benefit from its insulating and moisture-retaining characteristics, so apply it liberally around the base of each plant. With grafted roses, be sure to mulch over the bud union (the point where the plant has been grafted to the rootstock), which is very sensitive to freezing. If the bud union is left exposed, the rose could die back past the graft, and you may end up with a rose of an entirely different color growing up from the roots in spring.
If you choose to protect your roses with Styrofoam rose cones, keep in mind that they allow no air circulation, so mold can quickly result if the air temperature climbs too high. Be prepared to remove them during unexpected warm spells.
Burlap is also very useful for winter protection. Use it with stakes to build a wind block around tender plants in exposed areas. A burlap frame combined with the use of an anti-desiccant spray will give broadleaf evergreens a good level of protection against winter damage.
Keep on watering!
Water is perhaps the most commonly overlooked garden-winterizing tool. Until the ground freezes, plants keep expanding their roots, and water helps insulate them against the elements. So, if Mother Nature doesn’t oblige with regular rain showers, keep on watering until the ground is frozen. This is especially critical for perennials planted in fall.
Treat your tools right
Last but certainly not least, it’s time to clean up and prepare your trusty gardening tools for a long winter’s nap. Fill a large bucket with sand, and mix in some light motor oil. After removing as much dirt and debris as you can from your tools, dip the business end of each repeatedly into this mixture. The sand will scour off any remaining dirt, and the oil will provide a rust-protective coating. If some tools are already rusted, sand off the rust before dipping.
Prepare your gas-powered tools for winter storage by either running them dry or adding a fuel stabilizer to the fuel tank. This will make starting a snap next season. Late autumn is also a good time to take power tools in for any necessary repairs, adjustments, or sharpening. Don’t postpone repairs until next spring when the shops will be inundated. ✲
