Now's the time to start putting the garden to bed. While some of the
hardy mums and ornamental grasses continue to bloom, most plants are showing
the effects of the cold nights and need to be cut back. Some gardeners choose
to leave Echinacea and Rudbeckia plants standing for the birds wintering over.
Others
choose to leave the ornamental grasses until spring. For the rest of your
perennials, remove the foliage to the ground. If you had disease or insect problems
this season, it is important to clean up the area really well. Leaving cuttings
and plant debris on the ground can encourage insects and diseases to winter
over. Next, water each plant thoroughly. Perennials, shrubs
and trees all do better in the winter if they are well hydrated now. In the
case of dahlias and other tender bulbs such as canna lilies and glads, it's
time to decide what you want to do with them, because they typically won't
survive the winter. You can dig them up and store the tubers and bulbs in a
cool spot or simply discard them and plant new ones in the spring.
This a good time to test your soil, either do
it yourself or send a sample to CSU. While you wait for the test results,
consider adding organic material to your vegetable and perennial beds. Spring
and fall are good times to improve your garden soil. Coconut coir, organic
compost, worm castings, peat moss can be added to your garden beds now, either
as a top dressing or dug into the soil.
Top dressing is easy. You dump all your
amendments into a pile in the garden, then shovel or rake it across the garden.
Over the winter, this top dressing will improve your soil as it breaks down.
Other garden chores this time of year include
planting cover crops,
wrapping
deciduous trees,
raking the leaves off the lawn and applying a winterizer fertilizer. and mulching
perennials with 4-6" of mulch. Gorilla Hair and Western Cedar are good
mulches. Doing these things now will prepare your garden for winter and a better start in the in the spring.
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