Steps To Get Your Garden Ready For Winter

• Time To Close Down Your Garden – Start closing down your garden in late October and November when the temperature drops to the 40’s and 30’s F.
• Move Plants Or Remove Plants – Autumn is a great time to take a moment and look at plants you want moved or removed from your garden.
• Plant Your Bulbs – Fall is the time to plant your bulbs, and bare-root trees and shrubs.
• Divide Your Perennials – Now is a great time to start dividing your perinials like day lillies or hosta plants. Dividing will maintain the health of your plant and will ensure a better coverage for next season.
• Clean Away Dead Debris – Cut away flower heads and any dead branches. This will allow the plant to conserve its energy for the long winter.
• Cover Delicate Plants – For delicate plants like roses it’s best to cover them to insulate them and protect them from snow and sub-zero temperatures.
• Use Mulch To Insulate – It’s best to use mulch to cover the ground as in colder parts of the states, the ground will freeze.
• Cut Back Your Perennials – This can also be done in the spring but fall is a good time as well.

Many new gardeners may ask, what garden tool do I use? What time of year do I prune? All these questions an many more will be covered here.

Essentially, pruning can be done all year round. Trees and shrubs are ideal to prune as they can be shaped into a decorative design. Now the best time to prune trees or shrubs really depends on how fast they grow.

Here’s a simple guideline to pruning:

1. Remove Any Dead Debris Or Branches – clean around the base of the plant, shrub or tree and then remove any dead plant that is still one the plant.
2. Thin out crowded areas – If you see dense patches where branches criss-cross or form at an odd angle, prune those back
3. When Pruning, Use A Pruning Sheer – This, by far, is the best garden tool for pruning. They come in different sizes so pick ones that suit the shrubs, trees and plants you have