How to Prepare Your Patio Garden for Winter

You have taken the time to personalize your patio garden and to create a lush and shaded retreat during the hot summer months. Have you given thought to what you must do to make your patio garden ready for winter? The time for preparing your patio garden for the often harsh winter months is in the fall. This is especially true if your winter climate is one that includes snow and cold temperatures.

Bringing Patio Garden Plants Indoors
If you are planning on bringing patio garden plants inside for the winter, you should begin preparing them in September. Check each of the plants for insects or diseases. You do not want to bring insect- or disease-laden plants inside which will infest the rest of your house plants. Some plants may benefit from pruning before they are brought inside for the winter.

Just as you harden plants grown inside the house to adapt them to grow outside in the spring and summer, you must help your patio plants adjust to living indoors during winter. Do this by putting the plants in a location on your patio with one degree less sunlight. A full sun plant, for instance, would be placed in a location receiving partial sun. A partial shade lover would spend its adjustment time in a full shade spot.

Make sure your patio garden plants have a week or two to adjust to the atmosphere inside the house before the chillier fall temperatures require you to turn on the heat. This should be done when the temperatures in the evening hours are consistently in the 40's. The leaves on your patio garden plants may not grow as large and some may become brown-edged or die because of the change in environment. This is to be expected. The plants are undergoing environmental stress and will adapt within a month. Plants which are often brought from the patio garden to spend winter in the home are herbs, begonias, palms, and ferns.

The fall is an excellent time to make sure your patio garden plants are not root bound before they come inside for the winter. Support the stem of the plant between your fingers and turn the pot upside down in your hand. You may have to strike the bottom of the pot a couple of times to loosen the plant and soil. The entire ball of soil should come out in your hand. If you see a densely woven mass of roots, the plant will need to be repotted in a larger pot. If the patio garden plant is not rootbound, wait until the winter months are over to repot. Spring is the best time to repot but a rootbound plant will not flourish if the roots are competing for soil space. If the plant is rootbound you must repot before winter comes and the patio plant comes inside.

Some plants which have spent the summer in your patio garden will require special care while they are adapting to their indoor winter home. These include Christmas cacti, gloxinias, and poinsettias. Their flower buds will not set unless they have been primed for this by allowing them to have fourteen hours of absolute darkness each day from the first of October to the middle of December. One way of doing this is by putting them on a dark closet shelf each evening until morning. Another method is to place a paper bag or cardboard box over them during those night time hours. The rest of the time these plants can receive normal light as found in the house.

Give your patio garden plants which will spend the winter indoors a thorough watering. Any insects you missed in your original check and salts and minerals which have built up over the summer will be washed away. Scrub the outside of the pots before bringing the plants in for the winter.

What To Do With Bulbs In Your Patio Garden
If you wish to have spring flowers like crocuses, tulips, and daffodils bloom at the edges of your patio garden, you should plant the bulbs and corms while you can still work the soil. Deciduous root stock like hydrangeas or azaleas which can remain dormant in the ground during the winter can also be planted at this time.

Some bulbs and corms in your patio garden can not withstand winter temperatures. These include gladiolas, tuberous begonias, and dahlias. Dig glad and dahlia bulbs up carefully and allow them to dry for about three weeks in an airy location. Then you may cut back the dried foliage to about an inch above the bulb. Keep the bulbs and corms in vermiculite or peat moss in a place which is dark, cool (about 45 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit), and rodent-free. Begonias can dry until the stems break off the tuberous part of the plant and then be stored in the same manner.

Perennial Patio Garden Plants
Perennial plants like daylilies or hostas may decorate the outer edges of your patio garden. When they have stopped blooming or when the first heavy frost has occurred, the foliage can be cut to within one or two inches of the ground. If you are like me, you may allow the foliage to die off and dry, to be removed in the spring. I have done both with no harmful effects to my daylilies over winter. Leaving perennials untrimmed allows them to capture the fallen snow and offers a little more protection. The seeded tops of perennials can feed the winter birds.

Some people prefer to bag up leaves and grass trimmings to place on top of patio garden perennials for protection from the frigid winter temperatures. I usually rake leaves over the top of my small beds before the snow flies and rake the debris off them when all of the snow has melted and warm temperatures have returned.

Annual Patio Garden Plants
Annual plants in your patio garden will have died after the first hard frost unless you have covered them overnight to protect them. If your annual plants have died, remove them completely from the garden and dispose of them. If you leave them through the winter, there is a greater likelihood of disease or insects to attack your plants in the spring. Removing dead annuals gives you opportunity to work the garden soil before the snow flies or the ground freezes. This will make replanting easier in the spring by loosening up the soil. Be sure to do one last weeding before winter. Add some fertilizer or prepared compost at this time. The melting snow will distribute the fertilizer or organic matter in the ground, making it ready for spring planting.

Winterizing Vines in Your Patio Garden
If you have trained roses on an arbor or trellis to shade your patio garden, you must prepare them for winter. Let them be until after a night of freezing temperatures, usually in October. The next day, cut the canes back to about half a foot to a foot above the ground, then cover with a pile of top soil. Cover the piles with purchased rose cone covers, bushel baskets, or bags of fall leaves or other lawn clippings. My brother-in-law in central Minnesota dug his rose bushes up, cut them back, and laid them in a trench he had dug in the same place he had planted the roses. He then covered them with soil to protect them through the winter months. Fuschias may be overwintered in this manner.

Grape vines which provide shade to a patio garden during the summer should be prepared for winter. Generally, the vines are trimmed after the first frost so there are two or three offshoots from each main vine. If the main vine is not pruned, the weight of the offshoots will break it. On each offshoot, you must leave about one hundred buds. This will ensure new growth and a good harvest of grapes after winter.

Final Preparations For Winter
The most durable plastic pot should not be left outside in the patio garden spot if at all possible. In time, over a few bitterly cold winters the plastic will become brittle, weaken, and eventually break. Store planters and containers in the garage or other sheltered place during the winter. Do not leave them on your patio if you can help it.

At the end of preparing your patio garden for winter be sure to thoroughly clean any gardening tools you have used with soapy water to remove any dirt, insects, or plant disease from them. You do not want to carry insects or disease from garden spot to garden spot by not cleaning your tools. A gardening friend rubs oil on the metal surface of the tools after use to prevent them from rusting. Store the tools in a dry place.

Remember to analyze how well your patio garden plan worked for you. Did the patio garden serve the purpose for which you created it? Would you rearrange anything? Make your plans for next year while preparing your patio garden for winter this year.