Home & Lifestyle >
Gardening >
Seasonal Gardening
Preparing Your Garden for Winter - A Fall Checklist
Preparing your garden for the long winters is not a difficult task
and can be done efficiently in the course of a single afternoon.
Winterizing your garden is about cleaning, mulching and protecting.
While older trees and shrubs develop winter hardiness for the
on-coming season and need only to be mulched, younger plants need
to be protected using paints, burlap covers and wire mesh guards.
Here is a checklist to ensure proper and effective winterizing of
your garden and healthy blossoms next spring.
1. Clear away all the summer mulch.
2. Clear away all the decomposed plant material that will not be
used for mulching. This includes old leaves and stems that may
attract insects and diseased or infested plant material.
3. Plant Evergreens during mid-august to early September to ensure
that they root well before winter sets in.
4. Plant Spring Bulbs early in Fall to allow for root development
before frost which in turn ensures healthy flowers in spring.
5. Spread four inches of fresh mulch to keep soil from freezing and
thawing during winter. Keep the mulch thickness to only three
inches around trunks or it may cause rotting.
6. Set up wire mesh guards for tree trunks and young trees to
protect them for rodents. Push 1 or 2 inches of the mesh guard into
the ground to prevent burrowing underneath.
7. Prepare to keep deer away. Use permanent or temporary fencing or
spray homemade or commercial resistant or wrap plants with deer
mesh.
8. Avoid sunscald in young trees by painting their trunks with a
mixture of white latex paint and water in the proportion of
one-to-one.
9. Protect evergreens from the winter sun by setting up burlap or
cloth screens or by spraying anti-desiccants on them.
10. Protect tree trunks of young trees from bark-splitting by
wrapping the trunks with commercial tree wrap paper or burlap.
|
