Cleaning up your garden in the fall will make sure it looks attractive throughout the winter and is ready for spring. Use this fall garden cleanup checklist to make sure you don’t neglect anything important.
In addition, we’ve listed a few things you shouldn’t do. When you avoid going overboard, you turn your garden into a safe haven for birds, insects, and small mammals, who need extra support to survive the winter.
1. Rake Some of the Leaves
If you have many deciduous trees, your garden will likely be covered in leaves by the middle of fall. Raking up some of these leaves is useful for making your garden look neat — but it’s important not to remove too many. Leaves provide a habitat for insects, including predatory invertebrates that feed on the pests that may otherwise invade your garden in early spring.
One place you should remove fallen leaves is the lawn. Raking them up will prevent mold, diseases, and other damage to the grass. However, even your lawn will benefit from leaves to some extent. In the early fall, a better option than raking is to mow over the leaves to break them down into smaller pieces. This will provide nourishment to the grass. Another place to remove leaves is ponds. You want to avoid leaves sinking to the bottom and rotting, as this reduces water quality.
2. Cut Back Some Perennials
You only need to cut back some perennials, including irises, peonies, lilies, and tulips. Leaving them over the winter puts them at a risk of pests as well as fungal and bacterial diseases. However, you should leave most other perennials alone until early spring. This will allow several species of bees and butterfly larvae to nest in the stems through the winter.
3. Remove Diseased and Rotting Material
It’s important to clear away any rotting plants as well as any foliage showing signs of disease. This will remove the insects or fungi causing the problems and prevent the material from becoming a food source for pests. If you have a vegetable garden, make sure you remove all the crops in the fall.
4. Dead Head Just Invasive Plants
Some plants are too good at self-seeding and will spread out of control across your garden. This includes blazing stars, rudbeckias, and columbines. With most other seeding plants, though, there’s no need to dead head the flowers — it’s better to allow the seed heads to ripen and split open to feed the birds that visit your garden. This will also provide you with (manageable) flowers next spring without you needing to do anything.
5. Weed Your Garden
Fall is a crucial time to weed your garden. Pulling out weeds now will keep growth under control in the spring, causing fewer problems for you.
6. Do Some Light Pruning
Prune trees, bushes, and shrubs just enough to neaten up your garden, focusing on dead branches and signs of disease. It’s best to wait until spring for a major pruning, as this will give your plants the chance to grow fresh leaves and start to bloom before you decide what to cut.
7. Create Compost
If you’re not already composting, now’s the time to start. This will give you a supply of compost to use in the spring. Put all the material you’ve collected while cleaning up your garden to good use (including leaves, dead plants, weeds, and grass clippings) as well as kitchen waste. Just make sure to throw out any diseased material — otherwise, the disease may spread throughout your garden.
For the best results, aim for your compost to consist of half green material (grass, fruit and vegetable scraps, and coffee grounds) and half brown material (leaves, twigs, and branches). In addition, make sure the pile stays moist and and turn the material regularly to aerate it.
8. Take Down Plant Supports You No Longer Need
Young trees may need stakes for a year or two. However, keeping the stakes for longer than this starts putting the tree at risk of damage. Check the trees you planted last year and the year before to see which no longer need a supporting cane.
9. Drain Your Watering Equipment
If you live in a part of the country where the temperatures drop below freezing, you’ll need to drain watering equipment like hoses and irrigation systems. Any water left in them over the winter may freeze and damage the equipment — potentially beyond repair.
10. Empty Planters
Similarly, you need to empty ceramic, terra cotta, and plastic planters. Left full, the moist soil may freeze, expand, and break the containers. The only planters you should leave with soil are those you know are weatherproof and resistant to cracking.
11. Add a Layer of Mulch
Many parts of your yard will benefit from a layer of organic mulch about two to three inches deep. Adding this in the fall will help the soil retain moisture, stop weeds from growing, and prevent bare soil from losing its nutrients through erosion.
One of the most important areas to cover with mulch is your vegetable garden — unless you’re planting a cover crop. Other spots include under perennials, trees, and shrubs. This will provide the plants with nutrients in time for their growth in the spring.
12. Dig Up and Plant New Bulbs
Dig up any tropical flower bulbs that won’t survive a cold winter. This may include elephant ears, caladiums, gladioluses, and dahlias.
In addition, give yourself something to look forward to in the spring by planting some fresh bulbs. Decide if you want to group colors together or have a scattering of different colors throughout your garden. Flowers like daffodils, fritillaries, crocuses, and alliums are ideal. Tulips are only a good idea if you don’t have deer in your area.
What Not to Do
There’s little else you need to do to create a healthy garden in the fall. Although it may mean your garden is a bit messier than in previous years, look at the bright side: not only will you be supporting wildlife, it’s less work for you!
In addition, there are some things you shouldn’t do:
- Remove foliage from healthy plants — If plants are not rotten or at risk of suffering from disease, it’s best to leave them be. Keep that material for insects that will benefit your garden and the wider community.
- Use chemicals — It’s ideal to avoid using chemicals entirely. However, it’s especially important to avoid using anything in the fall because this may disrupt growth cycles of plants and harm birds, insects, and mammals that are sheltering or foraging in your garden.
- Cut down tree snags — It’s best to leave dead trees to decompose naturally. All sorts of creatures will use them as a place to make nests, find shelter, and hide food.
- Give mulch to fruit trees and berry bushes — Unlike the rest of your garden, these plants do better with some mulching at the end of winter, right after the frost has melted and you’ve raked up the leaves. This will help get rid of any pests in the top layers of soil.
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