Sign up for our newsletter!

comprehensive garden maintenance

Comprehensive Garden Maintenance

Fall Cleanup

Fall is the time to tidy up the landscape for the winter season, cutting back perennials that die to the ground such as day lilies, hosta and astilbe. This keeps that landscape looking clean and will help save time in the spring when it comes time to remove all of the spent foliage.

Depending on the type of plants that are in your garden, other winterizing applications may be required before you are ready for the long cold winter. Broadleaf evergreens that may be placed in locations where they will be hit with heavy winds is a must require some attention. Winter winds can suck the moisture right out of these plants causing them to desiccate and turn brown. This process can be prevented with burlap to shield them or by using a chemical application that will keep them from desiccating. Trees and small ornaments such as Japanese Maples that have thin bark have a tendency to be prone to frost crack. This is the process of the trunk heats up in the winter sun and can cause the bark to split; this can be quite detrimental to the plant but can be easily remedied. Wrapping the trunk with a trunk wrap material will reflect the sun’s rays preventing this from occurring. When plants are placed in the correct spot these applications are rarely necessary but are used on the occasion as preventative measures.

This is also the time to remove all the leaves that fall in your garden and onto your lawn. There really is no benefit to removing the leaves from your garden just an aesthetic one, but removing fallen leaves from the lawn area is necessary. Leaves that mass on the lawn will cause your lawn to thin out and even cause bare spots.

Once your garden has been prepped for the coming winter you can decide on any spring flowering bulbs that you would like to see, such as daffodils, tulips and hyacinths just to name a few. Another plant to consider would for great fall and spring color would be pansies. Pansies are a great cold hardy annual that thrives in cooler temperatures and can survive through the winter. This plant will put on a great show until the snow falls and covers the plant and then will go dormant. When the snow melts it will start to bloom again and will continue to do so unit you pull them to replace with you summer annuals or until the heat causes them to fade.