Tips for Clearing Out Your Garden and Getting it Ready for Winter

In order to winterize your garden, you just need to clean up and cover up. You need to prepare the plants that will survive the frost for dormancy. But, how on Earth do you do this? Do you just lay a sheet over your flower bulbs and call it good or let your young trees fend for themselves? Nay, we say.

Here are some tried and true tips for preparing your garden for the inevitable frost and cold.

Preparing Bulbs

Use evergreen boughs to protect your bulbs from the snow, frost, or other cold climates. These boughs act like a mulch that prevents the ground around the bulbs from cracking and splitting. With shifting in the ground, the bulbs could be brought to the surface and die. Evergreen boughs prevent this from happening and you will be a happy camper come spring when your bulbs are preserved.

Preparing Trees

You don’t want your young trees to be exposed to the harsh weather and gnawing animals—their trunks can’t handle the stress. Wrap the trunk with wire or tree-guard products from your local home improvement store.

Preparing Perennials

Perennials are plants and flowers that come back year after year. They typically survive winter, but need to be prepared in order to do so. The process begins by cutting back the dry stems to soil level to remove insect eggs and disease spores after the first frost. Then surround the stems with compost made of the dead leaves that fall from your trees. This creates an organic soil conditioner of sorts. Make sure the compost isn’t filled with any diseased plants or debris.

After the ground freezes, add a 6-inch layer of organic material as winter mulch. We offer great organic options for mulch, compost, and soil and guarantee that your perennials will be well taken care of by our products. You can then cover all of this with pine needles or chopped leaves which creates an extra protective layer for the plant roots and soil and moderates the winter temperature.

When the Snow Comes

Snow can come by Halloween or even earlier for some people who live in colder climates. Snow has the benefit of insulating your ground and garden like a mulch, but it also has its disadvantages. Snow can weigh down your evergreen trees and break the branches. To avoid this, make sure to pat the snow off of them after each new snow fall, starting with the lower branches and working your way up to the higher ones. If your plants are weighed down by ice, let the ice melt before you try to break them free.