Time to Clean Up Your Garden for the Winter

Well, it's Fall , heading for Winter. It's time to winterize your garden and your tools. It's a good time to think about what you might need for next planting season and to round up all the tools you've loaned out. You need to invest in some burlap so you can wrap your more delicate plants and shrubs. Pay special attention to any that aren't protected by your house or larger shrubs. For the plants near your house you might want to make a burlap fence by tacking the burlap to pieces of lumber creating a wind screen for them. . Landscaping is far too expensive to leave up to the garden Gods.

Now is a perfectly good time to cut any dead woody branches from your bushes and any leaders from the bases of your trees. Deadhead any blooms from your Rhodedendrons. Cut back any Iris greenery now. When pruning keep in mind its important NOT to prune any flowering shrubs like Forsythia, Azalea, Rhodedendrans, Lilac or you'll be cutting off next year's blooms. Cut off any sucker shoots and cros branches as well as leaders. All th cut material can be put in a mulch pile. Speaking of mulch it's good idea to add a protective layer to your plant beds. This will deter the weeds come Spring and hold off the bugs.

When you are pruning remember do not use a smaller tool than the job demands. It's always easier to try to muscle your way through a branch but it makes no sense when you can have trimmers and loppers. Move up to the next largest tool. Each tool is meant to handle a certain width branch. You wil lonly end up sore and /or with a broken or dulled tool. Speaking of dull make sure your tools ar sharp and well oiled. A dull blade is a hazard. When you ar through preparing your garden oil your tools before putting them away. I use Fiskars brand tools.They don't rust and they are guarenteed for life but it still doesn't dismiss you from taking good care of them.

A few things to remember regarding tools, never lend them out. The borrowers will not take the kind of care you would with them if they return them. Label your tools in indelible ink to encourage their return. Always use the right tool for the job as I mentioned above. I've built a mini tool shed outside so I am mor likely to put my tools away before going back in the house and I can always find them on the way to the garden. Keep a can of bug spray and garden gloves with your tools.

Hoses should be bled and put away and water to those spouts turned off. Lawn furniture should be covered or stored. Gutters should be cleaned. Take a walk around and pick up any pots that need storing as most will crack if you experience really cold winters. You might find some missing garden tools on your tour as well. A good idea with garden tools is to tape them with really bright tape or paint the handles a really bright color like orange so they don't blend into the garden if you leave on behind. Oil your shovels and hang them up. Make sure your name is on the handle. I drill a hole in the handles so I can hang them in the garage.

If you have a pond I assume you've stopped feeding the fish. By now you should have it netted toavoid having toscoop wet leaves out of it. An excellent way to net it is to create a dome using PVC pipe. This way the leaves fall off the rounded sides. The net is also important to keep Herons from swooping down and consuming your expensive Koi. Some years we've left the net up but because we get fairly heavy ice and snow it ends up ruined. It's a toss up between replacing fish or replacing netting. We've usually opted for replacing netting.We found it quite upsetting finding our large Koi lying by the pond dead.

By now your Spring flowering bulbs should be in but depending on where you live you still have time. You can still plant up your tubs. I remove some of the leaves from the tubs, barrels or palnters I have but I leave some for a bit of protection. We haven't done the fall leaf clean up yet so I'm holding off using the seedds from flowers I've dead headed since they'll get blown away in the clean up. But, once the leaves are gone I walk around and sprinkle some of these seeds here and there for the Spring while dead heading the last of the dried up flowers.

This is also a good time to buy any tools you might be lacking either at your Garden Shops, Home Depot or at garages sales. Garage sales are particularly ripe for picking up tools, wheel barrels and the like. Prices will be cheaper at your Garden Shops another bonus.Our local Garden Shop puts its bulbs on sale and since we've had a long, mild Fall I can still plant them in plenty of time.

Once all that is done you can put your tools, gloves and seed packets away and go hibernate for awhile. Plant yourself by your fireplace with a nice seed catalog.