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Fall can be a tricky time for gardeners in growing zones that experience true winter. What should you cut back? What should you leave alone? When is it time to pull certain flowers, and when do they still have a few more weeks to bloom? And last — but certainly not least — which backyard critters will appreciate plants left standing? Below, Birds & Blooms readers share their six can’t-miss garden prep for winter steps.
Leave Some Plants for the Birds
While some plants don’t offer wildlife benefits and should be pulled, that’s not the case for everything you might’ve added to your garden in spring or summer. As field editor Ken Orich notes, “Preparing for winter is easy! I leave spent flowers and plants standing to provide food for winter birds, and I rake leaves into my flower beds. The leaves shelter insects and are a great place for ground-feeding birds to find food.”
Take Precautions with Perennials
Some plants can become overcrowded or bloom less intensely if they aren’t thinned out before their next blooming season. On that subject, Birds & Blooms reader Sandy Miller writes that a key step in her garden prep for winter is to, “divide and transplant some perennials. Hostas, peonies, coral bells and phlox benefit from being thinned out.”
Garden Prep for Winter — and Spring
One key piece of preparing for winter is also preparing for spring… and specifically, spring weeding. It can be difficult to tell what’s a weed and what’s something you’d planted in previous years, and you’d hate to pull the latter and leave the former. To combat this problem, field editor Kathy Eppers says, “I place small stakes in the ground to mark where plants such as milkweed will die back to the ground so that I don’t accidentally pull them when weeding in spring.”
General Tidying Up and Cleaning
Of course, some portions of garden prep for winter are straightforward. It’s always a good idea to keep things neat and cleaned, so you’ll have less work to do in spring. That’s what field editor Keith Golden does, as he writes that he empties “all patio pots, including plants and dirt, and clean them for winter storage.”
Water Before Cold Snaps
You might not know that it’s helpful to water plants before a cold snap. Watering plants before those temperatures set in helps them from taking damage due to drought stress. On that topic, field editor Juli Seyfried says, “I water all my plants deeply before an upcoming cold snap, especially if it hasn’t rained lately.”
Keep Butterflies and Moths in Mind
It’s always a good idea to be mindful of overwintering critters when doing your garden prep for winter. Field editor Connie Etter certainly does! She says, “I garden for butterflies, and some of them make their chrysalises and overwinter. I’m always gentle if I cut down the foliage from old plants so that I don’t disturb the overwintering butterflies.”
