Your outdoor plants have worked hard for you all summer, making
your yard a place you’re proud to call home. Properly
winterizing your lawn and garden is an important step toward
healthy soil, lush grass, and happy plants next year. Remember
to take care of your outdoor accessories, including your lawn
equipment, gardening tools, and all of your lawn and garden
decor. A little time spent this autumn will make your gardening
and landscaping efforts easier and more enjoyable next spring!
Let’s start with the easy jobs - First remember to store all of
your lawn and garden decor including fragile planters, gazing
balls, and your deck furniture. Unglazed terra cotta planters
left filled with soil outside will often break in the freezing
temperatures so it is best to clean them and place them in a
storage area where they are protected from the elements.
Autumn is the time to find your birdfeeders and to start
stocking your winter feeding pantry. Soon your many feathered
friends will be flocking to your feeders for that nutritious
morsel. Remember to keep your feeders full through the winter as
the birds need reliable food sources through the winter months.
Now that you’ve done the easy tasks, let’s move on to the more
mundane winterizing chores. Start by simply cleaning up the
vegetable garden. After the first hard frost, remove the year’s
annual plants and the dead vegetation. You can add this material
to your compost pile, but make sure you’re not adding material
from diseased or pest-infested plants. You’ll want to pull
perennial weeds before you mulch your garden down for the winter.
The best part of fall landscape chores is planting the
spring-blooming bulbs. Crocus, tulips, and daffodils are a
beautiful addition to the early spring landscape.
In the yard there’s the major job of raking leaves. These are
great either in the compost pile or as direct mulch on the
garden. Perennial flowers may be smothered by a heavy layer of
mulch, however. Also, wait to prune your trees until later in
the winter.
After the ground freezes you can mulch your perennial flowers
and newly planted trees. Certain shrubs will need to be wrapped
in burlap to protect them from wind damage, sun scald, and other
winter injury.
Moving on to the mechanical tasks of winterizing your lawn and
garden - While you might try to procrastinate on these jobs
until spring, you’ll be well rewarded for the maintenance you
perform this fall. Drain the gas from your lawnmower and string
trimmer. Actually it’s best to let your mowers and trimmers
simply run out of fuel. If you don’t want to ‘waste’ that little
bit of fuel, add a gas conditioner before the long winter. Be
sure to follow directions. Also, take the same care with your
gardening equipment such as your rotary tiller.
Clean all of your landscaping equipment before you store it away
for the long, cold winter. Wash with soap and water, clean the
air filter, and change the oil. You’ll find that first lawn
mowing job in the spring a little bit easier if you take time to
sharpen the blades now. You can protect that freshly sharpened
blade by applying a little spray oil to the blades. You can also
apply light spray oil to other moving parts such as cables and
the throttle controls.
Lastly, drain all of the water from the garden hoses and turn
off the taps. Be sure to store your insecticides, herbicides,
and fertilizers in a safe storage area that will not freeze.
Make sure these materials are kept away from children and pets!
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