Maintaining the garden year-round is dear to a gardener's heart, and year-end upkeep is an essential part of the cycle. When the shadows lengthen, and the air grows cooler, it's time to prepare your garden for winter.

At season's end, there are a number of tasks to do to ensure that your gardens will withstand winter and be ready to burst into life in the spring.

As your gardens wind down in the fall, cleaning up beds, maintaining and protecting the soil, controlling pests, pruning, and making repairs are all essential to getting your yard ready for its long winter nap.

Gardens that are well-prepared for winter are healthy and have the best chance to resume successful and beautiful spring growth.

When to Prepare Your Garden for Winter

When it comes to preparing your garden for winter most tasks should be done in the fall before the first frost date in your area. Use this table to find the average frost dates in your ZIP Code and Earl May's garden calendar for month-by-month suggestions.

General cleanup is best done after the deciduous plants shed their leaves, but some garden maintenance can start earlier, depending on the weather. Pruning woody plants takes some know-how to time it for each plant's needs.

Assessing Your Garden before Winter

Before you begin your winter preparations, walk around your property and take an inventory of what needs to be done. Look at what needs to be cleaned up, pruned or cut back, and covered, protected, and repaired.

• Surveyyour vegetable garden and note when your last harvest will be and what plants need to be protected.
• Tour your lawn and look for thin or bare spots and compacted areas that are thick with thatch.
• Identify which trees, shrubs, and perennials need pruning, wrapping, or dividing.
• Test the soil for vegetables, fruits, and ornamentals for pH and nutrient levels, and note how much mulch or frost covers will be needed.
• Inspect your garden structures, sheds, trellises, fences, outdoor furniture, etc., to see if any painting or repairs are needed. Assess your garden tools and equipment to see what needs cleaning, oiling, and maintaining before you store them for spring.

Tasks for Winter Preparation

Each of these tasks protects, nourishes, and maintains your vegetable garden, lawn, ornamental trees, shrubs, and perennials for the winter.

Vegetable Garden

• Harvest the last remaining cold-weather crops and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Freeze, can, dry, or give away extra vegetables and herbs you don't plan to use immediately.
• Remove or till under the spent vegetable plants, weeds, and debris from the garden right after harvest. This will help to disrupt the life cycle of some insect pests that lay their eggs in the soil.
• Enrich the soil and ensure good drainage by mixing structure soil conditioner into your vegetable garden.
• Protect the soil from frost with a layer of leaves or compost.
• Cover sensitive late-season vegetables with cloches or frost tents.
• Plant a cover crop before the frost date, such as oats or winter rye, or legumes, such as clover or vetch, to protect, enrich the soil. Allow these plants to grow during the fall and winter, then turn them into the soil in the early spring.

Fruits

Prune out dead or dying wood on fruit trees and bushes in the fall. In the late winter, after the trees or shrubs have gone dormant but before they produce buds, shape the tree to encourage more flowering.

• Prune out any dead or dying stems on cane fruits.
• Mulch fruit trees, shrubs, and canes to protect the roots from the cold.

Lawn

• Continue mowing at a 3" height until frost to allow the lawn to keep growing and nourishing the roots.
• Waterduring dry spells if appropriate and allowable by local authorities.
• Aeratethe lawn with an aerator tool to improve air circulation and drainage if there is not a thick layer of thatch.
• Rake offthick, compacted thatch early in the fall before seeding so that the lawn can recover before it goes dormant in the winter. Depending on the type of grass and its growth, this can be done every three or four years.
• Seedbare or thin spots in late summer or early fall. Choose an appropriate grass variety for your location and amount of sun or shade. Apply new lawn starter and water thoroughly then add a layer of straw or a germination blanket to hold the seeds in place.
• Fertilizethe lawn a month or two after seeding to boost its nutrition for lush spring growth.
• Clean up fallen leaves, sticks, and debris on the lawn after the deciduous trees and shrubs have lost their leaves.

Ornamentals

• Remove all debris, leaves, spent annuals, and weeds from under the trees and shrubs. A clean soil surface prevents diseases from taking hold and insect pests from laying eggs in the soil.
• Fertilize ornamentals for the last time of the year in late summer or very early fall.
• Add compost into the soil to improve drainage and boost nutrition.
• Mulch beds and around trees and shrubs to protect the roots from freezing and the soil from eroding. Place mulch at least 3"-4" away from the trunks at soil level.
• Sprinkle a circle of diatomaceous earth on top of the mulch around the base of trees and shrubs to create a barrier against insects.
• Divide spring-blooming perennials and plant them back in the soil if you want to increase the plants in your garden. Divide plants with clumping roots by cutting through the root ball. Divide rhizomes by breaking off or cutting sections of the rhizomes apart. Divide plants with woody crows by cutting the crowns into sections.
• Plant spring-flowering bulbs before the ground freezes in the fall.
• Wrap the trunks of young trees or install fencing in late fall to protect against deer damage.
• Prune plants after they have finished flowering, but be careful. Pruning spring-blooming shrubs that have already set their buds in the fall will eliminate any chance of spring flowers. On the other hand, some summer and fall-blooming plants can safely be pruned in the fall because they won't have developed flower buds yet. These include shrub roses, butterfly bushes, some hydrangeas (not oak-leaf), lavender, and gardenias. The ideal time to prune these plants is between Thanksgiving and New Year's.
• Bring houseplants back inside when the temperatures dip below 60 degrees F. Check and treat for hitchhiking insect pests before you bring them in.

Garden Structures and Tools

• Repair and paint garden structures, sheds, trellises, fences, etc., as needed.
• Clean and oil garden tools and store them for the winter.
• Clean and winterize power equipment such as mowers, blowers, and trimmers after their final use.
• Repair or replace any broken tools or equipment.

Planning for Spring

One of the exciting things about the end of the season is planning for next year's garden. And even though it's months away, fall is the time to set goals and prepare for your spring planting and garden care.

You can buy and plant spring bulbs in the fall, start vegetable and flower seeds indoors in late winter, and dream about what you'd like to add, change, or design on your property. This is an excellent time to explore catalogs and read gardening articles to expand your knowledge.

If you have any questions or need supplies, seek expert advice and shop for winter gardening materials from any of our Earl May Garden Center locations.

Final thoughts on Preparing Your Garden for Winter

By assessing all areas of your yard in the fall, you'll be able to sort out what needs to be done to prepare your garden for winter. It may seem daunting, but if you take on one task after another, you'll have a healthy, beautiful garden in the spring waiting to reward you for your efforts. Happy gardening!