There are things gardeners need to do this season besides place pumpkins on the front porch. Fortunately, since we have had such fabulous autumnal weather the ground is primed and our plants are healthy.
Of course, we should continue to enjoy the lovely days and the fall foliage before it's all covered with snow.
But try to keep up with the winterizing to ensure healthy plants next spring. Any day we could be overcome with a freeze, or a snow that lingers through April.
First, buy or order spring-blooming bulbs, shrubs and other fall plants. While you wait for them to arrive divide and replant crowded fall-blooming bulbs after leaves yellow. Pull annuals when plants cease blooming or are dead. Weed your gardens. To leave them in the ground is to ensure their hardiness as well. Cut back perennials; it will save wear and tear on your back next spring when doing the cleanup. Plant and fertilize the bulbs when they arrive.
Protect roses by not watering, pruning or deadheading anymore. Rose hips are signs that its growth cycle is complete so it can begin to shut down for the winter. They have another use—as a source of food for birds during the winter.
If so inclined or because your roses have a northern exposure, cover them with frost cloth or burlap, and gently wrap-tie it at the base. You can also add organic material such as chopped-up leaves and work it into a trench at the base. Soil and mulch can be mounded or hilled with 10 inches or so of soil.
Climbers should be taken off their trellises and laid down on the ground in a shallow trench and covered with organic material and soil.
"Winter can be deceitful in higher altitudes. When plants go dormant they look anything but alive," says David Salman of High Country Gardens in Santa Fe. "But during the fall and winter all the energy in a plant recedes from the top growth and settles underground. Within plant cells there's a higher concentration of chemically bound water. This helps the elasticity of the protoplasm, which is what makes a plant remain resilient during freezing."
So, keeping that in mind, cover perennial and vegetable beds for winter with compost or other organic matter. In the spring you'll want to spade it in when the ground thaws.
This prolongs the fall root growing process, protects roots from the freeze-and-thaw cycle and prevents moisture loss from wind and sun.
Empty clay pots into your compost and store the pots for winter to avoid cracking. Remove stakes and trellises from around the gardens, then clean and store them.
Update your garden diary on plant performance. Put photos you've taken of it this summer into the diary and label.
And don't forget tools by cleaning and oiling them before stashing them (in the right places) in the shed (which naturally has been tidied) for winter.
Then (whew), when you can't stay out another minute and your fingers are shriveling up inside your muddy gloves, take a deep breath, come inside and begin to peruse the wonderful gardening books you've no doubt accumulated this year.
See you next spring.
Dana DuGan
