As the days grow shorter and the nights get colder, the season for outdoor gardening comes to an end. But before you know it the crocuses will be croaking, the songbirds singing, and another glorious gardening season will be under way.
Yet the success of next year’s garden depends on how well you prepare this year’s garden for its season of slumber. Yes, now is the time to begin putting your gardens to bed for the winter.
Vegetable, fruit and herb gardens, and ornamental gardens of flowers, vines and shrubs, should be tucked in to help them get a better start next spring and to protect any perennials from the ravages of winter.
Like children, these different plants need to be put to bed in their own special way.
Except for some very cold-hardy turnips, Chinese cabbage, parsnips and carrots, annual vegetable and fruit plants in northern parts of the country have been killed off by frost and cold weather.
If you haven’t already done so, pull out the remains of peppers, zucchini, corn, basil and other annuals. Break them up, shred them if possible and toss them in the compost bin. This detritus is called crop residue and it is a valuable form of organic material.
The only exception to this are bean, tomato or squash and melon family plants infected with a powdery mildew, a virus or some other blight. Diseased plants should be burned or destroyed, but not composted. Get rid of these plants to help stop the spread of disease in your garden. (Of course, by now you should be growing plants that are disease-resistant.)
Now, if you have a fairly powerful rotary tiller, you can simply break up the crop residue and till it into the soil. You can also till in any extra straw, leaves, compost, composted manure or even fresh manure. All of this organic matter will decompose over the winter and enrich your soil for next year.
Another advantage of tilling your vegetable garden in the fall is that migrating or resident birds will flock to your fields and eat any grubs, beetles or other damaging bugs that they can get their beaks on, which is a natural form of biological pest control.
Perennial flowers, vines and shrubs are only perennial if they can withstand the cold in your area. All Northeastern gardeners endure ground-freezing winter temperatures that can and will plummet below zero. Your perennial plants will appreciate a little winter blanket that you provide.
You really shouldn’t put your perennial gardens to bed until the ground freezes. If you cut off still-living green growth on the tops of your perennials, you will encourage your perennials to send out new growth.
This new growth depletes what stores of nutrition the plant has in its roots. Also, once the really freezing weather arrives, the top growth is damaged, giving the plant one more jolt it really doesn’t want.
You want your perennial plants to start drifting off into plant hibernation now. Yes, you can cut down any brown stalks and obviously dead material. But don’t cut your herbaceous perennial to ground level until the ground freezes. Then take all the cut-off material and put it in your compost bin. Lay a protective barrier of Christmas tree boughs over the bed. I simply cut the boughs off the tree with a lopping shear. If you don’t put up a cut holiday tree, get one from a neighbor who does. Straw is another effective blanket, although it is not as attractive as boughs. If you get a good covering of snow, that is the best.
Whatever blanket you use, the objective is not to keep the plants warm. No, you are actually ensuring that the plants stay frozen and intact until spring. It is the freezing and thawing of unprotected ground, plus the dry winter winds, that cause plants to be damaged by winter.
In spring, leave the boughs on the bed until new growth appears naturally. Don’t force the season. By then, most of the leaves on the boughs will fall off into the bed, adding organic matter to the soil.
As the leaves fall from the trees, I get out the lawn mower and harvest a crop of mulch. Just recently, I put the bagging attachment on my mulching mower, filled several bags full and dropped the minced leaves in the beds around my rugosa roses. I also dumped several bags over the newly planted Romantic shrub thicket I am creating in my shady back yard.
Don’t put un-shredded leaves in your shrub or perennial border because they might mat down and smother your perennials. Shredded leaves are fabulous and a free source of fertilizer and mulch.
It is of the utmost importance that you keep newly planted trees, shrubs, perennials and vines fully watered as they go into winter hibernation. These young plants need moisture because winter is a very dry time, and if they don’t have moisture before winter they will likely dry out and die. Water these plants every week until the ground freezes. I realize that it may seem foolish to water during cold weather, but this is very important. Put on gloves and get the job done.
I just replanted several clematis and a rose bush, and I will be watering on Thanksgiving Day. So can you.
Your lawn is a garden, too. The most important thing you can do for your lawn at this time of year is to fully remove all the leaves that have fallen on it. If not, the leaves will mat down, smother the grass and kill any good growth you are planning for next spring.
Be sure to shred your leaves and put them in the compost pile or sprinkle them around the shrub border. Leaves are a good source of phosphorous, and any grass clippings that you can harvest are a good source of nitrogen.
Finally, lower your mower blades to cut the grass to a height of two inches for the last cutting of the season. This way, the taller grass of summer does not mat down over the winter, which can cause disease problems come summer.
Compared to the demands of the growing season, none of this is a lot of work. But a small measure of attention at bedtime will help your lawn and garden sleep well until then.
