Tree Style

Quit Playing In The Leaves And Clean Up Your Garden!

November in Michigan is the time to put your flower garden to bed for the coming winter. There are possibly three different techniques for shutting down your garden in winter-each one has its pros and cons.

The “tidy clean-up” removes essentially all dead plant matter from the garden-with the exception of woody perrenials and flowering shrubs. This is the most tidy and neat looking technique. Reminiscent of your living room after the maid service leaves. This technique will ensure that very few diseased leaves are left behind to infect next years plants.This is going to help with your pest control. By removing all the plant matter from your beds you have removed all the good compost for next year. You have also removed the winter protection and that plant matter provides for roots. You will now have to amend your garden in the spring with expensive compost and fertilizer to make up for what you have removed. This fall clean-up style is costly and deprives your garden of vital nutrients.

The “high/low maintenance” technique for fall clean-up is a balance between the sterilizing your beds and the do nothing approach. High/low maintenance technique is by no means a no maintenance approach. This approach may involve a lot of work in the garden now, but will save you tons of work in the garden in the spring. In this approach one would remove dead annual plants,sprinkling the seeds as you go and putting away your decorative garden decor if need be. These should germinate if you don’t use preen in your garden. Go ahead and cut back your perennial plants, leaving one third of the plant, but don’t cut back woody plants and flowering shrubs. Do not prune your flowering shrubs and herbs until warm weather returns in the spring. Leave seed heads on some of your native plants and grasses for the birds for the winter. Leave one foot on your ornamental grasses if you cut them back. Rake out the beds and remove all of the cuttings and most of the leaves that have come down from the trees. Use your mower to mulch leaves that you have blown onto your lawn from the beds. Leaves are like free fertilizer when they are mulched into the grass. Oak leaves mulched into the grass are supposed to prevent future weeds in your lawn. Encourage you lawn care people to mulch leaves as much as they are able to. You may need to bury some of your tree roses. You may want to put some wilt spray on your rhododendrons in December as well as build some burlap houses for them. But don’t let burlap touch the plants. You can leave them be, but taking the extra time to protect rhododendrons, roses and hydrangeas will give you more flowers next year.

the “no maintenance” technique to fall clean-up is the final and perhaps least labor intensive approach. Mother nature will tuck in all your plants with out any work from you-that is the big advantage of this technique. The con’s of doing nothing now are that your neighbors will hate you for your messy yard and you will have a lot to do in the spring at a time when lots of plants are starting to peek through the debris. These plants and bulbs are very tender in the spring and will get mangled as you tear through the beds with your rake and pruning shears. Not only that, but the soil in the spring is at it’s most vulnerable time and stepping in the beds now will compress it terribly and prevent the tender roots of plants from growing at their best. Remember that weeds left in your beds will grow through out the winter months if you do not pull them [out] in the fall.

What ever your clean-up approach be sure to put away your outdoor garden decor for the winter as you dont want it to get ruined. Also remember to clean out your bird feeders and bird houses and stock up on bird seed before the snow falls so you can sit back and watch the animals in your garden while it sleeps.

Each individual gardener has their own preferences of how to tackle their garden before winter comes. The approaches outlined in this article are meant to help you decide what fall maintenance technique is ideal for you. Go forth and maintain your gardens in the spirit of what will grow and bloom next year!

How to Bonsai- Changing Tree Style

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