Winterizing Your Graden

Top Winter Gardening Mistakes + Solutions

Also see Fall Gardening Tasks

Mistake No. 1: Forgetting to Take Cuttings
Take cuttings of plants that aren’t hardy enough to survive your region’s winter. Good candidates include Mexican bush sage, mints, coleus, pineapple sage, polka dot plant and many others. Most root easily in water and can be tucked into pots later. Others, like scented geraniums, grow best when dipped in rooting hormone powder and stuck directly into soil to root.

Mistake No. 2: Not Bringing Plants Inside
Once night temperatures stay below 50 degree F to 55 degree F, it’s a good idea to shift potted houseplants indoors for winter. The same rule applies to non-hardy potted plants you plan to overwinter indoors, even in a dormant state. Keep an eye on weather forecasts for unexpected early-season snows. A few hours of the lightest snow on a tropical plant can kill leaves. Even this cool-loving fuchsia suffers damage when covered with snow.

Mistake No. 3: No Pre-Snow Clean-Up
In snowy winter climates, aim to clean up the garden before early snowfalls arrive. Doing this helps to reduce winter resting places for pests and diseases that go into hiding once snow flies. Take time to cut down perennials that die back to the ground and pull annuals. This aspect of winterizing plants helps eliminate hiding places for pests and diseases. Leave any plants that add winter interest with seedheads or stems, but clean up as much as possible.

DO NOT cut these perennials back in fall:

Mistake No. 4: Not Destroying Veggie Crops
It’s vital to destroy spent vegetable crops, especially those that hosted problem pests, like Mexican bean beetles. Don’t toss these plants into a compost pile unless you know it heats enough to destroy pests and eggs. It’s safer to dispose of infested plants and fallen leaves in bags you put at the curb for garbage pick up.

Mistake No. 5: Pruning Shrubs
Pruning causes plants to produce new growth, which is tender and highly vulnerable to freezing temperatures. Wait to prune shrubs, including butterfly bush and caryopteris, until spring when all danger of frost has passed. At that point you can remove any winter-killed branches. In future years, aim to get pruning done by late August so plants have time to harden off before freezes arrive.

Mistake No. 6: Letting Hoses Freeze
Before night temperatures drop to freezing, remove all hose-end attachments, including watering wands and nozzles. Detach hoses from hose bibs, and close any interior shut-off valves along exterior water supply lines. Drain hoses by running them out to their full length from a hose reel or other holder. It works best if you can let one end run along an incline so when you rewind the hose, the water flows out naturally with gravity. Store irrigation gear in a garage or shed.

Mistake No. 7: Failing to Deadhead Self-Sowers
Plants that self-sow aggressively in the landscape can be beautiful in bloom but a gardener’s nightmare if allowed to go to seed. Clip seedheads on plants that tend to self-sow heavily in your garden. Good candidates include Joe-Pye weed, goldenrod, boltonia and black-eyed Susans.

Mistake No. 8: Skipping Mulch
A winter mulch can be a gardener’s best friend, especially around new additions to the landscape. That extra mulch layer can help prevent frost heave around new plants that may not have an extensive root system to help keep them anchored in soil as it freezes and thaws. Put a 2-inch-thick layer around the base of plants to insulate roots.