As the temperature dips towards freezing, you must prepare your outdoors to bed properly during the winter months. It’s important to protect your landscape from the extreme weather so that when spring arrives, your garden is ready to bloom.
There are several tasks to do to get your garden winter snow-ready and stay in good shape for spring. You need to start working between fall and winter to tackle your landscape, annual beds, containers, vegetable garden, tools and machinery. In this blog post, we’ll give you some essential tips to make your landscape prepared for the worst winter has to offer.
Prepare Your Lawn and Landscape
Before winter arrives, it’s good to give consider frosts and freezes and how they’ll affect your plants and landscape. If you have warm-season grasses in your garden, give them a final mowing and apply a weed preventer as they go dormant in the winter. Have cool-season grasses over-seeded and fertilized. Since there are a lot of fallen leaves during this time, mow them into the lawn, and use them as compost or mulch.
Also, give a thorough check of your trees and shrubs for signs of poor health and dead limbs. You can contact an arborist to correctly inspect damages and diebacks. It’s necessary to remove those parts from the trees to keep them in good shape and avoid potential damage to your garden.
Protect Your Potted Plants
There are certain plants that can’t withstand even a little frost depending on your location. If you have tender perennial and annual plants in pots and want to extend their life, move them into the house or garage. Take them out once the weather warms up to help the plants acclimate better to the drastic weather change. Before you bring them inside, spray the plants as they may have pests. Don’t water and fertilize them once inside.
Take special care of the evergreen plants in small pots as they’re vulnerable to the cold temperature. If their roots freeze, they won’t live through the winter. Therefore, make sure to water them throughout the winter to avoid having their roots dry out completely.
Cover Tender Seedlings
Tender seedlings of fall veggies need protection from the extreme cold and snow. Use a few blankets or plastic to cover your crops overnight in the vegetable garden but make sure to remove them during the daytime before the sun hits. This will save the seedlings from excessive heat.
Take Care of the Soil
Planting a cover crop during the winter months is a good idea to maintain soil texture and prepare it for the spring. A good mix of brassica, grass and legumes such as radish or turnips, peas, and oats or perennial crops like asparagus, rhubarb and horseradish are ideal for the purpose.
Some Additional Tips
Wrap up delicate pots in double layers of burlap and secure tightly with a strong string. This will help these ornamental containers to withstand the freezing temperatures.
Prune the trees properly after winter sets in depending on their types and breeds.
Avoid tree topping as it makes new growth more vulnerable to snow and winter winds.
Use Calcium Magnesium Acetate or CMA salt to melt ice and snow effectively without affecting plant health. It’s biodegradable and non-corrosive.
Empty, clean and store seasonal containers.
Clean all garden tools and machinery to remove dirt.
Follow these tips to prepare your garden and landscape to combat the extreme weather conditions of winter. Start planning your tasks now to complete them on time and watch how good your landscape functions in the spring!