Late fall garden tips

Now that cold weather has really arrived, I hope that most of your ‘outside’ garden chores are completed. Some of those may have included using your mower with the mulch setting to finely chop leaves and twigs and at the same time mulch your lawn areas with this natural winter protection. Chopped leaves help to fertilize the soil and the mulching effect will protect the grass through our variable weather of cold, cool and sometimes mild days ahead.

In the perennial beds, leaving the stalks of plants with good seed heads provide food for the birds. We usually leave our zinnias, cone flowers and black eyed Susan until spring cleanup. During winter, when the feeders are empty, the birds scour the flower beds. It helps the perennial plants to have a stem during cold and windy weather. The stem and dried leaves of the hibernating perennial collect the tree leaves that are blowing around. This collected leaf material provides a blanket of insulation protecting the root mass of the perennial throughout the winter.

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