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Fall Garden Chores and Winterizing your Garden

By: Phil Reilly
Reilly's Country Gardens,
Kinburn, Ontario.
September 3, 2000

Fall garden chores fall into two categories: basic clean up of the past season's growth and winterizing the garden for a successful flowering season next year. Until a killing frost occurs, spend your time keeping gardens weed-free. It's too easy to procrastinate on the weeding detail. Little weeds proliferate to big weeds in jig time! Also, remove matured flowers that can self-seed all over the garden. This simple advice, often ignored, can save hours of weeding out thousands of unwanted flowers next year. There is justification in leaving a few flower heads of some plants that you would like to multiply by self-seeding.

Plan now for some winter visual reminders of your past gardening season. Let some sturdy perennials, like sedum 'Autumn Joy', and ornamental grasses stand throughout the winter. Their seed heads, as well as coneflowers and sunflowers, are great natural bird food.

Successful overwintering of many perennials depends on moisture-filled root systems. In dry falls, water deeply beds of perennials and shrubs to keep roots in prime conditions. Winter winds can suck moisture out of any leafy plants even though it appears they are not growing. It is especially important in the weeks leading up to winter freeze-up to keep shrubs planted next to house foundations adequately watered.

Cool fall weather is also ideal for digging and dividing many perennials. Even though a killing frost may knock back the foliage of perennials, the root system of perennials continues to grow until ground freeze-up. Spring and early summer blooming perennials are good candidates for fall division. Do not fertilize fall-planted flowers and shrubs. A deep watering at planting time, with weekly follow-up waterings until freeze-up if fall rains don't occur, is all that perennial roots need for active fall growth. When cooler fall temperatures arrive lawn grasses will naturally green up again when moisture has been provided. We recommend allowing lawn grasses to go dormant (yes ... let them go brown!) during the hot and dry summer months. Then our valuable water resources are preserved for essential uses. We also don't recommend fall application of fertilizers with weed killers. More and more people recognize that ground water quality is being degraded by chemicals applied to lawns for purely cosmetic benefits. Dandelions, clover and creeping charlie actually indicate a healthy and diverse lawn planting better able to withstand summer droughts. October is spring bulb planting time: September is often too early as bulbs may start to grow and be susceptible to winter freezing damage.

Fall is the ideal time for preparing a new garden for planting next spring. Few perennials like water-logged soil conditions. Build elevated beds for great plant performance. Four to six inches of elevation is ideal. Incorporate coarse sand, compost and peat moss in our locally dominant clay soils to result in well-drained, airy soils loved by all plants. For deep-rooted perennials such as peonies, create beds 12 to 18 inches deep to accommodate their massive root systems. Over the winter, fall-prepared soil will settle and be ready for an early spring planting bee.

After a killing frost, it is time to make the rounds to remove blackened vegetation. This garden clean-up, while cosmetic, also helps control plant disease organisms that might overwinter in decaying vegetation in the garden. Consider building a back yard compost pile to recycle nutrients and humus material obtained in your garden clean up. Compost piles should be about three feet square and high to produce enough heat to kill weed seeds and plant disease organisms. Build your pile in six-inch layers with a one inch layer of animal manure (or a cupful of 7:7:7 granular fertilizer), plus a one inch layer of garden soil, on top of every six inch layer of leafy garden waste. The fertilizer feeds the decomposer bacteria (naturally provided by the soil layer) that will pasturize the garden waste. Wet each layer of vegetation waste as you build the pile to make the pile moist but not soggy. The bacteria need lots of moisture to do their job! It is a good idea to put a clear plastic covering over the pile to maintain a high moisture environment while keeping out heavy rains that can make a compost pile too soggy. The plastic also helps retain the heat of decomposition (which speeds up the composting process) occurring in the pile.

Not all gardens need all of the previous year's vegetation removed for the winter. Sunny gardens benefit from having a complete clean up because the crowns of many sun-loving perennials don't tolerate being covered by moist, decaying vegetation. Woodland gardens, on the other hand, generally have plants that benefit from a covering of decaying vegetation. In nature, leaves and vegetation accumulate on forest floors and contribute to soil fertility and moisture retention. Vegetation and fallen leaves removed from sunny gardens can be applied to woodland gardens. Shredding collected vegetation (running a lawn mower over the material a few times does the job) provides a fast-decomposing mulch material. Don't be over zealous with this mulch program though – two to four inches of applied material is enough.

When considering which perennial plants to prune of vegetation, look at the plant for woody stems and vegetation which stays green over the winter. Some marginally hardy shrubs and perennials regenerate from buds which over-winter under the protection of snow cover. Leave pruning of these until late spring when it is evident which buds have survived. Butterfly bush, Smoke bush, Russian sage, lavenders and artemisias are best left until mid June for this pruning. Evergreen plants such as candytuft, moss phlox, and pinks, are stimulated to grow by fall pruning. Dormant plants are more winter-hardy than actively growing plants, so leave these too for spring pruning.

Finally, once freeze-up has occurred, it is time to wrap trees and shrubs which are sensitive to winter winds and winter sun scald. Young, smooth-barked trees like maples, apples, poplar and willow, should have winter trunk protection to prevent sun blistering of the bark. White plastic coils, available at garden supply stores, are ideal for this chore. Magnolias and azaleas and many other tender shrubs in exposed areas should have burlap protection around, but not touching, the branches. Attach burlap, to the height of the shrub (to keep winter sun and wind off the leaves), to four corner posts and leave the top open for snow to accumulate around the shrub. Alternatively, plywood teepees can be erected and positioned over small shrubs to block winter sun exposure.

With these chores undertaken, you can now relax for the winter and wait for another successful gardening season.