Tips to Get Your Garden Ready for Winter 

If you read my story yesterday – the one about the now very popular Apple Cinnamon Muffins I treated myself with – you will already know that it was an absolutely beautiful morning in Ontario. After I had my muffin and coffee, I took a little walk into my garden. Can you believe I still have some beautiful blooms in there? So I took pictures you can look at and it also made me think that I should send your way a few tips ads to what I think is a good odea to remember to get done before the cold weather and snow arrive:

Here are my 10 Tips to Get Your Garden Ready for Winter:

1. This is actually a great time to transplant small tree and shrubs if you need to. It is fine to do it when the leaves turned colour and started to fall.
2. It is also a good time to plant new trees and shrubs – there is still time before the ground freezes deep enough to do manage to the roots.
3. You will want to put plastic or wire mesh around new trees or shrubs to protect them from hungry animals – like rabbits or mice. When you do that, make the protective covers high enough so that it reaches above the snow line.
4. As far as perennials go – it is up to you whether or not you cut back the dying foliage. I prefer to leave it, since I think it offers protection to new growths in early spring when you can see unexpected frost or spring snow falls that could do some damage. The other things that it does is feed hungry birds. But – some people prefer to have their garden all nice and clean in the spring – so it is your call!
5. The one things you don’t want to do is cut roses back before the winter – leave them the way they are, just hill over the root system to prevent frost damage. In the spring, keep checking where new growth is and cut parts of the plant that have been damaged over the winter.
6. You will also need to make sure that your shrubs and trees have a good storage of water . That means watering them until the ground freezes. This is especially important for newly planted ones – since evergreens don’t lose their “leaves”, they continue to give off water vapours through the winter months.
7. It is a good idea to do “once over” on your flowerbeds – pulling out all the weeds. Make sure you don’t throw them into your composter – you would have them sprouting again when you use the compost next spring! You can pull out all plant remains and materials from your vegetable garden and put those into your composter.
8. If you have leaves you don’t know what to do with, consider shredding them and using them for mulch on your flower beds. You can add some to your composter as well – it will take a season or so until they make compost, but it will be the best organic treat for your garden soil! To shred the leaves, you can just run a lawnmover over them to break them up – they will compost better.
9. Speaking of leaves – you will want to rake them off your lawn for sure. If you don’t, they will smother your grass.
10. And speaking of grass – not only is this the perfect time to put some winter fertilizer on. It is also time to do the final cutting. If you leave the grass long, it will likely cause some low-temperature fungi.

Hope you enjoyed reading this and as mentioned at the beginning of this article – here are few pictures I took yesterday and of course – few comments as well:

I will be looking forward to your comments, suggestions and experiences – your input is always very much appreciated!