It's Not What You Think

My garden is all tucked in and ready for the winter.

Garden beds always need some tweaking, and autumn is the perfect time of the year to transplant, divide, cut back, and discard plants. Once that’s done, don’t cut everything back and rake the ground clean. That depletes the garden of beneficial insects and other organisms while exposing the soil and plants to the elements. We want to protect the garden from Old Man Winter, not strip it bare. However, it there’s a few basic things to do to reduce the workload in spring and to keep plants happy. 

Cut back perennials, like this hosta, once they die-back.

This garden has been cleaned up and is ready for winter.

Make a Plan: Deciding what to transplant, divide, plant, toss out, cut back, protect, clean-up and to keep is quite daunting. Making a list of all the tasks certainly helps. If you have a large garden and/or lots of plants, concentrate on one garden or one part of the garden at a time, as makes it more manageable.
Inspect & Assess: Before doing anything take a walk around the garden. Plants that are not doing well could possibly wrong location. Take note of where the sun and shade resides in the garden so you can match the plants to the conditions. And when purchasing plants, note what conditions they prefer by reading the labels.

The damaged foliage of this hosta indicates it is receiving too much sun.

This flowering currant is in too much shade that's why it is reaching towards the light.

Too much shade: Stems are weak, straggly and yellow with few or no flowers and they lean towards the light. Transplant to a brighter location or remove growth of neighbouring plants that are blocking the light.
Too much sun: Plants are weak, bleached, pale, stunted with very few leaves. Move to a shadier location or place a larger plant nearby to block the offending light.

Tree canopies are effective umbrellas and stop the rain from reaching plants below.

Water: Some plants may still be suffering from drought, especially ones under the eaves and tree canopies. Give them and the surrounding soil a good dose of water.
Feed: Improve tired soils by mixing in a few inches of compost, SeaSoil, well-rotted manure or other organic soil amendments. Pathetic looking plants that lack vigour and bear yellow foliage would benefit from some organic plant food such as kelp or fish fertilizers. 

Cherry black fly

Peony measles, click on the pic for more.

Dead coral bells (heucheras).

Discard: Remove any and all plants that are dead, diseased and dying and discard, don't compost.
Diseased and Buggy Plants: I am not a fan of keeping diseased and insect infested plants and their parts in the garden, especially over the winter. It's best to clean the garden of infected plant debris, including the soil and don't compost them so they don't get a chance to reinfect in spring. 

A daylily is dying back in preparation for winter.

The same plant after it was cut back to a few inches.

The leaves are healthy so they were distributed around the plant in the 'chop & drop'.

Cut Back Perennials: Once they start to decline, cut them back to 2 to 3 inches above the ground. Leaving an extra bit of stem to help protect their crowns (where stems and roots join) and provide habitat for beneficial insects, especially those with hollow stems. If stems and leaves are healthy, there's no need to cart them away, just place them around the plant on top of the soil. This 'chop and drop' method is a simple way to add more organics into the soil without spending any money and reducing your labour. Avoid making big piles, just spread them out about an inch or two deep.
Divide Perennials: Divide perennials that are taking over too much space. Cut them back to their base, then dig them up to divide them or slice off sections – roots and all. Use a sharp shovel, or two garden forks back to back and pry the roots apart. Plant them elsewhere in the garden, give them away or pot them up for a spring plant sale.
Too Crowded: Too many plants maybe the bed is too small. Anything less than 3 feet will soon be overflowing. Shrubs and perennials don’t just grow in height, they get wider with age; they need room to grow to look their best.

To divide this hosta, cut back the stems then use a sharp shovel, knife or pruning saw to cut the plant into smaller pieces.

This bed is just way too small. The tree and shrubs are already showing signs of distress.

The Veggie Garden: Remove all dead and dying crops. Remove all their remnants from the soil to reduce overwintering and diseases. Keep kale, broccoli, chard, brussel sprouts, carrots and other crops that are still in good shape, but do remove any dead, diseased and weak growth. Weed the area and rough up the soil with a cultivator or trowel then add a layer of straw, fall leaves or even torn newspaper to protect the soil over the winter.  For a detailed account click on putting-the-garden-to-bed.html

Swiss chard and broccoli are still growing strong but need some TLC.

All the dead and yellow foliage was removed from the plants and the ground.

After the bed was weeded, a mulch of fall leaves were placed on top of the soil around the plants.

Weeds: Hand weeding is efficient and provides instant gratification. It’s much easier when the soil is moist so either water the area first or wait until after it rains. Try your best to get all their roots and seed heads so they don’t regrow. Bindweed (wild morning glory), buttercups, creeping Charlie and other weeds that spread through runners are difficult to remove, as many a gardener will attest to. Horsetails and bindweed are easily spread by digging them up, so don’t. A more effective method of control is to keep pulling, preferably as soon as they pop out of the ground. For more click on Horsetail, the Weed

Keep foliage and other plant debris on the ground as it helps feed the soil.

A cultivator work well to remove small weeds and seedlings.

Mulch & Fallen Leaves: It is a mistake to remove all fallen foliage from garden beds. Those leaves provide a natural and free mulch that protects the ground, reduces weeds while improving plant and soil health. Just remove them from the top of evergreen shrubs, but that’s all. Instead of bagging the leaves from the lawn, rake them into the neighbouring beds or mow and bag them then dump the contents on the beds. For more on mulch click here.

VanDusen Botanical Gardens provides inspiration for fall colour. Click on the pic for more.

Add Fall Colour: Once the garden has been tidied, consider adding some plants for fall colour. Don’t delay to take nurseries up on their fall sales. They will be displaying the stars of the season from flowers, vines, trees and shrubs. For a list of plants that provide colour in autumn click on Colourful Fall Plants.