Ten Winter Garden Maintenance Tips for Northerners

Ten Winter Garden Maintenance Tips for Northerners - During the long winter months snow, sleet and wind can cause considerable damage to even the best maintained gardens. Prepping your garden for the winter is actually a never ending task-- gardening does not end just because summer is over. Several years of winter gardening and maintenance has taught me a few things, and even though I cannot always protect my garden from the elements, I have learned several things that might prove useful in your own garden. A lot of the winter preparations that go into maintaining your garden for the winter months needs to be done before any snow arrives in the fall. Most of this work involves prepping your perennial flowers and shrubs for the cold ahead. Here are a ten tips for winter garden maintenance.

Protecting Your Pots
One of the biggest complaints I hear from neighbors or friends is the additional cost of replacing pots every year. If you take the time to protect your plants or store them for the winter, you will avoid the need to replace them and save yourself some money. If you have mild winters you can get away with tucking your pots into a sheltered area of your garden, but for those who live further North, your pots should really be brought inside out of the cold.

Protecting Potted Perennials
Potted perennials need to be protected during the winter because the pots they are in will not provide enough heat to keep their roots alive, no matter how big the pot is. With potted perennials, you have two choices with more or less work on your part being the deciding factor. If you have a large garden and do not mind a little work, you can plant your pots in the ground for the winter. Simply dig a hole, plant the entire pot in the ground and add mulch. On the other hand, you can simply bring your pots inside for the winter and keep them stored in a shed or garage. When you are keeping potted plants in unheated rooms it is a good idea to wrap each pot with fabric, such as burlap, or a similar material to help them maintain a constant temperature.

Add Compost to the Soil
Even though there won't be any flowers blooming through the winter months, any evergreens you have planted will require food through the winter. In addition, the dormant months are a great time to replenish the soil with the nutrients that your plants will need at the beginning of spring.

Spread Mulch
If there are areas of your garden that you usually have covered with mulch, or a section where you grow perennials, spread a layer of mulch over the ground. Mulch helps perennials make it through the winter months so that they return to your garden next season.

Collect Seeds
Before you clear out all the dead and dried up flower waste from your garden, make sure you collect any seeds that you want to grow in the spring. The best, and most affordable, way to grow plants is to start with what you already have in your garden.

Clear Garden Debris
The arrival of fall brings on the addition of garden debris that needs to get cleared out before winter arrives. Collect dead leaves, plants, and other garden debris that tends to pile up. Doing this will help you keep pests and small rodents under control as they like to use debris piles for shelter during the cold winter months.

Deep Watering in Autumn
Because there is very little water available to trees, both evergreen and deciduous, and shrubs in the winter, it is necessary to deep water. After all the leaves have fallen from your trees, provide your trees and shrubs with a good soak so that they will have enough water near their roots to pull from all through winter. It is very important to water trees at just the right time in the fall not too soon or you will cause new growth, but too late and the water will freeze before it gets anywhere near a tree's roots.

Wrap Vulnerable Trees
New and young trees will benefit and are more likely to survive winter if they have enough water to make it through the winter and the added protection of a tree wrap. Wind and the weight of snow can bring down healthy, strong trees, so young trees obviously need some protecting. I have been able to get all my evergreens, save one, through the long Chicago winters with the help of tree wraps.

Remove Snow From Shrubs Immediately
If you do not wrap all your evergreens and leave trees and shrubs unprotected, it is important to remove snow from their limbs immediately. I usually do this right after driveways and sidewalks get shoveled. Use a stick or other long reaching tool to help you shake the snow from trees before the weight weighs them down to much and they snap.

Protect From Road Salt
Salt is the one thing that is applied liberally on every flat surface all winter long, and if your garden is very close to the road, salt is a very real problem. My home is off a large main road, and there are several evergreens that line the front of our house to provide some privacy and a sound barrier, but they do show signs of road salt damage from years past. Before I moved in, no one wrapped the trees with burlap to protect them, but a simple tree wrap goes a long way to maintain the health of your trees.