Winterize your lawn during the fall and utilize excellent lawn care practices that prepare your plants for the cold weather of winter.
Whether you live in an area that is predominately cold during the winter months or have occasional blasts of icy air, you will need to prepare. Whether you have a vegetable garden or a flower garden, or both, it is time to get it winter-ready.
Winterize Your Yard: Save Your Perennials and More!
Winterizing your garden will help your perennials rebound in the spring. It will also lessen your workload in the spring for new planting. Think of it as getting your garden ready for a winter’s nap, all tucked in and cozy.
Your deciduous trees will turn the beautiful colors of autumn and drop their foliage. Your other plants will slow their growth then become dormant during the winter months.
Your newer trees, perennials, and spring bulbs have much going on underground to prepare for the winter and subsequent spring. Their roots are their anchors during the cold. The organic elements of the soil are their nutrients during the winter, and until a hard freeze, they are fortifying for winter as well. While nature has its way of preparing itself for cold weather, we can do some winterizing to help it along.
Here are some tips from Better Homes and Gardens and eartheasy.
Clean Your Yard!
Clean up. Old, dead plants can be home to insects and their eggs, fungus and disease. It is best to remove dead plants from the soil or bury them (if disease-free) to decompose. It is also time to remove any weeds that invaded your summer growth. Trash them or burn them.
Add Some Mulch
Add a good thick layer of mulch over your more tender perennials and around the hardier ones. This will keep the frost from harming those plants. Know your plants and what is best for their winter preparation, but for most, cutting perennials flowers to the ground and mulching them will do the trick. Ornamental grasses can stay through the winter and often are very pretty through the colder months but should be cut back before spring sprouting.
Dig Up Your Seasonal Flowers and Plants
Dig up tender bulbs. This is the perfect time to divide the hardy bulbs. You can then plant those in other places, dry and store or share with others. Your more tender summer bulbs like gladiolus, dahlias and cannas will need to be dug up and saved for the next season.
You must dig them up and cut off the leaves. Brush off, do not wash the soil. Allow them to dry out for a week or so then pack them into a breathable container such as a cardboard box or heavy paper bag. Cover them with old newspaper or sawdust to keep them separated. Place them in a cool place, under 45 degrees, but not below freezing. A basement, garage or shed may work.
Schedule Tree and Shrub Maintenance
Trees and shrubs. Before the first freeze, give them plenty of water. If it is a rainy autumn, you should be fine. Spread chopped leaves or mulch around the base of the trees. Trim away any diseased, damaged or broken limbs.
Prepare Your Lawn for the Colder Weather with Executive Lawn Care
With these steps, you can have your gardens winterized and prepared for spring planting. However, at Executive Lawn Care, we know that not everyone has the time to put into winterizing a lawn. Let us help you out! Contact us today to schedule our lawn maintenance experts for your residential lawn care needs.
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