Tips for tucking in your garden for the cold months

The main thing landscape buffs and ornamental gardeners should consider is water. Gardeners fear a hard freeze when soil is bone dry. Soak all planting before the hard freezing weather sets in. This includes mature evergreens and plants located under broad overhanging eaves. Watering is one of the best ways to prevent plants from dying because of dry-freeze conditions of winter. Most of our winter months have a tendency to be dry, and while subsoil may be adequate, root systems of fall-planted pansies and hardy annuals grown from seed have not put down a deep root system at this stage.

Gardeners should also clean up their garden plots now by removing dead plants as well as living grasses and weeds. Leaves and grass clippings can then be spread over the garden area along with small amounts of nitrogen fertilizer to help them decompose. The fertilizer and organic matter should be worked well into the soil so they will have time to decay before spring plating.