Read about the Do’s and Don’ts of Fall Garden Maintenance to prepare your garden for winter and ensure a healthy garden for spring.
Fall garden clean-up is essential for keeping your garden healthy and ready for the next season. Know the Do’s and Don’ts of Fall Garden Maintenance to protect your plants and trees from winter damage. Read them to make the fall gardening task easier.
Do’s and Don’ts of Fall Garden Maintenance
1. Dispose Diseases Foliage
Rake up and remove the leaves from under your rose bushes, fruit trees, and other plants like cherry, plum, and dogwood trees. This helps prevent diseases like black spots and powdery mildew from coming back next year.
Avoid composting these leaves—put them in your yard waste bin for pickup.
2. Rake off the Wet Leaves in the Lawn
Wet leaves can quickly damage your lawn. When leaves pile up, they block the grass from getting enough air and stop water from evaporating. This can lead to fungus, mold, and disease, which can rot your lawn. Make sure to rake or blow the leaves off your lawn at least once a week during peak fall.
Instead of throwing the leaves away, rake them into your garden beds as mulch or add them to your compost pile. Composting leaves creates excellent soil for your garden.
3. Clean Up Vegetable Garden and Fruit Trees
Pick any fallen fruit and leftover fruit from the tree. This helps stop insects from staying over winter and causing problems in the spring. Throw the fruit away.
Pull up vegetable plants that aren’t producing anymore. Be sure to remove tomato plants to avoid late blight. If the plants are healthy, you can put them in your compost bin. If you think they might be diseased, put them in the yard waste bin for pickup.
4. Leave Some of the Foliage or Plant Stalks
If you can, leave the foliage on your lawn and keep old brush piles or plant stalks. Wildlife and pollinators can use them to hibernate during the winter.
If you do rake the leaves, put them in your garden to enrich the soil and create habitat.
Warning: Don’t add walnut tree leaves to your garden or compost. They contain a chemical called Juglone that can harm or stop the growth of many plants, including vegetables.
5. Plant Spring Bulbs
Plant your spring bulbs, such as tulips and daffodils, about six to eight weeks before the ground freezes. You can also plant seeds of native flowers that need cold weather to grow.
6. Don’t Prune Perennials
If perennials are healthy, it will be better to leave them unpruned until spring, when the weather warms up. Some plants also have seedheads that birds like during the winter, so you can leave them until early spring and trim them back.
7. Mulch
Add mulch to garden beds to keep moisture and protect your plants from sudden temperature changes. Fall is also an excellent time to spread compost over the vegetable garden so it can mix into the soil in spring.
8. Fill Birdfeeders
Fill the birdfeeders when the weather becomes colder. Also, remember to sanitize them every couple of weeks to avoid the spread of diseases.
9. Water the Plants Once a Week
Although perennials stop growing above the ground in the fall, their roots keep growing until the ground freezes. Plants that get enough water handle winter stress better. However, avoid overwatering; water the plants when the topsoil turns dry to touch up to one inch.
10. Protect Tree Trunks from Deer and Sun Damage
Young trees and shrubs can be damaged by deer rubbing their antlers on the trunks. Their thin bark can also be hurt by the sun. Use a tree wrap to protect the tree in fall; it can stop both problems.
