How to Prepare Your Garden for Winter
When frost is on the pumpkin, or worse yet, when ice, snow, and below freezing temps are what’s on tap outdoors, will your garden be buttoned down and locked up tight? You’ve got to make sure that you and your garden are ready for all of winter’s delights. Check this one out and learn how to prepare your garden for winter.
The Holiday Season is upon us, and here in hardiness zone 6A/5B in the Northern Hemisphere, winter is at our doorstep. The leaves on the trees have been dropping and so have the temperatures. If you’re a gardener, the implication of these facts is clear: you need to take steps to prepare your garden for the coming winter weather. If you’re a well-prepared gardener, you don’t need to read any of this stuff. If you’re a well-prepared gardener, your erstwhile flowering piece of ground is buttoned up and battened down for the winter. I happen to be an unprepared gardener. At least this particular fall I’m unprepared. I’ll use the excuse that I was building an arbor in the garden (you’ll know of this structure from an earlier article here on The Renaissance Garden Guy) to justify my state of unpreparedness. And really, that is more or less accurate. But the bottom line is that I literally just started getting the garden prepped for winter within the last few days.
If you’re a conscientious gardener, but you happen to be behind the eight ball with your winter garden prepping, there’s no need to panic. You’re definitely not alone. You know at least one other guy for sure who’s in the same boat. Me. And I’m following a tried and true procedure to get my garden (and all of its inhabitants) ready for the coming winter cold. So don’t sweat it – if I can do it, you can do it. You got this!
How to Prepare Your Garden for Winter
Break your garden’s winter prep down into steps, and place them in order.
If your garden is located in an area where it doesn’t collect alot of fallen tree leaves (or if you don’t have deciduous trees growing in your garden), you’re already ahead of the game. If you’ve got a bunch of leaves blanketing your garden, you’re going to have to include dealing with them as a step in your garden winter prep plan. If you’ve got vermin tunnels and holes – abandoned or active – in your planting beds, you’re going to want to deal with them as a step in your prepping plan. Keeping said vermin out of your garden over the winter is another step. If you use mulch in your planting beds and it’s thin in spots, dealing with that is yet another step. If you’ve got perennials which require pruning, that’s a step. Seed pods to eliminate? Step. Look at these steps and figure out the best order to get after them with the least amout of wasted time and effort on your part.
Since everything I just mentioned here is pretty much exactly what’s going down in my garden, I’m going to have to deal with all of it. The following game plan is the one I use to successfully prep my garden for winter in the most time efficient and least labor-intensive way I can come up with. And even though I’m implementing it a little later than I think I should, it’ll still keep my sleeping garden safe when during the frigid months to come.
Here’s what I do, in this order.
1. Prune/cut down. Different perennials need different sorts of attention paid to their aerial structures as winter approaches. Herbaceous perennials like hostas, peonies, lilies, etc, which turn mushy and brown when temperatures drop, should be cut to the ground. Do this to protect the plant from being physically uprooted while it’s dormant, and also to eliminate fungi, parasites, or disease which might be lurking in that dead and soggy growth ( I discuss this in a bit more depth in my previous article). Some perennials need only a light pruning, and others need no pruning at all. But if you’re going to prune your perennials, or cut them all the way down to the ground, make it the first step in your winter prepping. Why? For one thing, why not? For another, if you’re going to be raking leaves out of your planting beds (the third step on my list), it’s way easier to do with fewer dead stems and foliage in your way. Plus, when you get up close and personal with your hibernating plants while pruning them, you get the opportunity to check out what’s going on in your planting beds from a dog’s eye view. There could be lots of stuff you need to catch and fix, that you’d otherwise miss if you weren’t on your hands and knees in the cold, slicing off rotting vegetation. Gardening’s awesome, right?
Fiskars SoftGrip Bypass Pruner. If I had to pick one pruner – only one – to use for the duration of my gardening days, this’d be the one. My own pair has performed beautifully year after year, and has remained as sharp as a razor. It’s got a 5/8” cutting gape, and amazing power, leverage, and precision. Like I said, if I had to pick only one pruner, this’d be it. Click the #advertisement link to learn more, or to order it here, directly from Amazon.
Fiskars PowerGear2 Bypass Pruner. This amazing hand pruner has got an awesome 3/4” cutting gape and patented gearing technology that delivers unheard of power and leverage for a hand pruner. My own pair has powered through season after season of pruning and chopping and has remained as razor-sharp and powerful as ever. This is an amazing tool. Click the #advertisement link to learn more, or to order one here, directly from Amazon.
2. Get rid of seed pods. Some plants are prolific seeders. They sustain their populations by heavy self-sowing. One example of this kind of plant is Hibiscus syriacus, or Rose of Sharon. I happen to have a couple of these bushes in my garden. They develop bulbous seed pods which burst in the fall, sowing the surrounding ground with hundreds of seeds. Unless you want dozens of Rose of Sharon shrubs popping up all over your garden in the spring, you’ve gotta get rid of these things before they erupt. It’s best to do this in early fall when the bush has stopped flowering and these bulbous pods are taking shape and starting to swell. I waited longer than is advisable to snip mine off, but I still think I got almost all of them before they burst. Make the cut anywhere along their flower stems and make sure you grab ’em before they hit the ground.
Note: I make extensive use of strategically placed bird feeders stocked with a few different varieties of bird seed to keep my non-migrating feathered friends fat and happy all winter.
3. Get rid of the leaves. This can be a loaded topic for a few reasons, not the least of which is the fact that many gardeners love the insulating benefit to their gardens’ slumbering perennial populations that the fallen leaves of nearby deciduous trees creates. There’s no doubt that a thick blanket of leaves can definitely keep the ground (and anything else) beneath them warmer in the winter. In fact, in my previous article, I explained how I stuff those same fallen leaves around the containers of my unplanted overwintering perennials in order to insulate them from the cold. Also, as the fallen leaves decompose, they basically become compost, and enrich the soil with various nutrients. And the blanket of leaves serves as shelter and, in some cases, food for any number of overwintering beneficial organisms and microorganisms.
But in my garden, the negatives of leaving the ground covered in leaves all winter outweigh the positives. For one thing, those fallen leaves are basically waterproof. When the leaves of deciduous trees are alive, they secrete a waxy substance called the cuticle which coats each individual leaf and keeps it viable (allows it to perform all of its vital fuctions – respiration, transpiration, photosynthesis, etc.) by keeping it from becoming waterlogged and soggy. That cuticle persists for quite awhile after each leaf has “died” and fallen from its branch. So when you have a whole bunch of waterproof fallen leaves in your garden, overlapping one another and covering the ground in a thick layer, you end up with a waterproof garden. That’s no good. Even in the winter, moisture needs to find its way down through the soil to each dormant plant’s roots or bulbs. This is critical for each plant’s survival. They’ve gotta have moisture. A thick blanket of leaves covering them all winter prevents that.
A blanket of autumn leaves presents a few other problems for you and your overwintering garden. Sometimes molds and fungi dangerous to garden plants can develop unseen under a blanket of leaves. And in my garden, a covering of leaves provides the perfect amount of obscurity for tunneling garden troublemakers like voles and chipmunks. Not only does a carpet of leaves provide cover for these guys when they’re excavating in your flower beds, it also prevents the effective application of repellents designed to get down into the dirt and chase the little sons of bitches away. And if voles and chipmunks (and moles) have created a bunch of holes and tunnels in your planting beds, and those holes and tunnels are near the roots of your perennials, you’re going to want to know about it so you can fix it (more on that in a minute). You can’t do that with a blanket of leaves covering the ground.
And besides, you’re gonna have to rake those leaves up eventually. You might as well get it over with now.
Note: For more on the topic of whether or not to rake up fallen leaves, please click here to read my article of 2022, which goes into a bit more detail on the subject.
4. Deal with burrowing mammal tunnels and holes. Whether you’ve got an active mole, vole, and/or chipmunk infestation in your garden, or a former infestation, you’re going to have some tunnels and holes in your planting beds to deal with before consistently freezing temperatures set in. It’s critical that your dormant plant population’s roots systems are protected from cold, dry winter air. When burrowing animals dig in your garden, their holes and tunnels frequently expose your plants’ roots. You’ve gotta fix this. If they’re old, abandoned holes/tunnels from a former infestation, pack thge holes with soil and a bit of granular repellent (for good measure), then top it all off with mulch (if you use it) and another localized sprinkling of repellent. If the holes are active, repeat this process, but you’ll need to be a bit more liberal with the repellent use, and additionally apply a systemic granular to the immediate locations of affected plants. For a more in-depth look at localized hole/tunnel repair and repelling techniques, please see Part Two of my series on dealing with burrowing garden pests. And for a list of highly recommended granular repellent products, click here. As an additional preventive step, this would be a good point in your winter preparations to add some systemic granular repellent to the areas immediately around your dormant plants. In any case, fill those holes and protect those roots before freezing temps become the norm.
Repellex Mole & Gopher Repellent. The top pick in my “The 10 Best Burrowing Animal Repellents” article of 2021. This stuff works like a charm at keeping moles, voles, chipmunks, and other tunneling critters from digging in your garden’s dirt. Its knockout punch: a 20% concentration of castor oil, which is the kryptonite of the burrowing mammal world. Plus, it’s loaded with a laundry list of other goodies that little diggers find offensive. To learn more about this excellent product, or to order it here, directly from Amazon, please click the #advertisement link.
Repellex Systemic Granular. This product works a bit differently than your typical burrowing mammal repellents. It’s a systemic granular, which, when watered in to the soil around a particular plant, is taken up through the plant’s roots and distributed throughout the entire tissue structure of the plant. Since its major active ingredient is capsaicin (the stuff that puts the “hot” in hot peppers), it effectively turns a treated plant – roots, stems, leaves, etc., into one big, impossible-to-eat, hot pepper. Read about how I use this product to protect my plants from voles and chipmunks by clicking here, and how I use it to keep my plants safe from deer by clicking here. This is an incredibly effective product. To learn even more about this product, or to order it here, from Amazon, please click the #advertisement link.
5. Re-mulch if necessary (and applicable). If you mulch your planting features with wood chips, now’s the time to add more if it’s thin in spots or has been removed by tunneling garden mammals. Mulch is the perfect insulating medium. It keeps the underlying soil (and any roots growing there) cool in the summer and warm in the winter. And it’s gas and moisture permeable so a good amount of air and water reaches the surface of the soil under the mulch. Re-apply if you see it’s low in spots, or missing altogether. The product I’ve always used is Scotts Nature Scapes Color-Enhanced Mulch. It’s a great wood mulch product that does exactly what it’s supposed to do. And I love the tone of its colors, which are beautifully and naturally incorporated into my garden’s design. Plus, the individual 2 cubic foot bags are super easy to carry and maneuver. Please click the #advertisement link directly below to order right here, from Amazon.
I really love using Scotts Nature Scapes color-enhanced wood chip mulch. The available colors are beautiful, and the product performs perfectly by allowing the vital exchange of air and moisture between the soil and atmosphere. And the bags themselves are extremely easy to carry, position, and open. Excellent product. Click the #advertisement link to learn more, or to order it here, directly from Amazon.
6. General burrowing animal prevention. As a final step, after everything else is done, apply a good granular burrowing animal repellent to the surface of your garden (according to manufacturer’s directions). Although moles, voles, and chipmunks do not hibernate in the winter per se, they do become substantially less active. But that doesn’t mean you might not have any this late fall and early winter looking to find a good piece of land where they can put down roots, start a family, and such. A good topical application of repellent will go a long way toward keeping any adventurous invaders away from your garden. The products pictured in the first 3 of the 4 #advertisement links directly below are all included in my Top 10 List of burrowing animal repellents.
I Must Garden Mole & Vole Repellent. This stuff was an extremely close second on my Top 10 repellents list. Like Repellex Mole & Gopher Repellent, this product packs a hefty punch of castor oil at a 20% concentration. And, like the Repellex product, it’s got lots of other ingredients that little digging mammals can’t stand. An excellent product. To learn more about it, or to order it right here, directly from Amazon, please click the #advertisement link.
Gloveworks HD Orange Nitrile Disposable Gloves. Incredibly durable, touch screen friendly, and with a textured gripping surface, these are absolutely the best disposable gloves I’ve ever used. They protect my hands from the most adverse conditions and, at the same time, allow for the tactile sensitivity to necessary to navigate the screen of my smart phone. Big recommendation here. Click the #advertisement link to learn more, or to order a box right here, directly from Amazon.
My Overall Technique.
Since I’ve got a number of different planting features throughout my entire garden, I take all of the above steps and apply them to one planting feature at a time. For example, I pruned, eliminated seed pods, raked leaves, filled old vole tunnels, mulched, and applied a topical sprinkling of repellent to the planting bed containing Rose of Sharon, holly, and privet shrubs, plus peonies, gaura, sedum, and hostas. Then I moved on to the planting bed containing my lilies and daylilies (my “Lily Patch”). And so on.
For those of you still looking to get your garden winter-ready, I hope this has been a helpful read. At the very least, it’s gotta be good to know that there’s at least one other guy out there who hasn’t wrapped this stuff up yet. Like I told you earlier, I’m still not done. Pretty close, but not done. And man, the mercury’s really starting to drop. So I know I’ve gotta get my ass in gear and get this thing knocked out. Or one fine winter day real soon, someone’s gonna find said ass frozen to a rhododendron.
A wonderful Holiday Season to all, and as always, Cheers, and Happy Gardening!
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The arbor looks fantastic! Can you imagine how great it will look covered in plants. Lots of great information..
Many thanks. Glad you liked the article!
Enjoyable reading and easy to understand steps in this winterizing process. Many thanks
Thank you, Rick. Very glad you found the info useful!
Thank you John for another informative article–complete with a few chuckles! guess I have some more work and inspecting to do around my gardens. And a shrub rake, I need to get one if those!
Thanks, Jill – glad some of the info was helpful! And yes, a shrub rake will make your life easier during clean-up time! Thanks again!
Lots of detailed info here thank you. I’ve been taught to leave my plants alone for insects to overwinter in and birds to eat. Then in the spring I remove most of my native plant stalks. I’m a big softy for any kind of animal but we haven’t had many problems here.
Thanks for reading and thank you for sharing your thoughts. You’re right about leaving aerial structures intact on many plants. I always leave dry and brittle growth in place on plants which go dormant in that fashion, such as asters, etc. It’s the ones which get mushy (peonies are a great example) that get the haircut treatment from me. Thanks again!
I can hardly wait for Spring to get here!