Good Lifestyle

With the winter on the horizon, many gardeners welcome their days of raking leaves and cut the branches, hoping to keep their plants healthy and protected before the snow begins to fall. However, it takes more than a few passes with the blower of the sheet fullyPrepare your yard before winter. If you want aluxuriant lawn And a healthy garden comes from spring, here's all you need to do before not bluster.

In order to keep your heart healthy all winter long, leave leaves to rakedeactivated Your autumn list to do. "Fallow leaves act like a magnificent winter coverage for the soil, isolating the roots of plants and erosion prevention," says garden expertPink stephaniethe founder ofGarden therapy and author of the next bookGarden alchemy.

When leaving your leaves alone, Rose says you will provide food and shelter for wildlife all over the winter and maintain the delicate ecosystem of your garden in the process. In addition, an aesthetic perspective, it will also "provide winter interest when seed heads and branches are decorated with snow," she notes.

Although you can have skipped your tasks to rather, there is an essential task that can put some of these good-use leaves: running your lawn mower on your lawn before the first snowfall. When they are cut into smaller pieces with a lawn mower, leaves "protect the ground with a natural mulch," said Rose. This will help the leaves break down more quickly, becoming more efficient food for your plants.

And if you have an excess mulch of leaves on your lawn, make sure to sprinkle in your garden and around the base of your trees where your lawn mower can also not reach.

If you have a vegetable garden, you hope to stay healthy for spring, it is imperative that you protect these food before the first gel. Even if your vegetables are cold tolerant, like carrots or winter greens, pink recommends that all gardeners "cover [their] vegetable with a cold frame or a hoop house" to prevent the gel from damaging plants .

Remember to water your plants when the temperature plunged temperature keep them better health? Still think. GardenerKevin Espiritu, founder ofEpic gardening and author ofUrban gardening field guideBy sprinkling your plants when the temperature falls below the freezing is actually more likely to cause their unpartune disappearance.

"Plants do not need water as much because they stop growing as fast during the winter," says Espiritu. So soak your floor when temperatures fall below the gel can quickly kill your plant life. Instead, glue to watering during daylight when the temperature is heated; You can even be able to jump the water again until spring, depending on the heat of your region.

To keep your court in advanced shape, it pays off to stop walking as much as possible when temperatures fall. Even if it does not have a snow yet, the gel can do virtually any type of greenery - even grass precariously fragile, which means that a quiet walk around your garden is a "quick recipe to snap Frozen tips and damage the lawn ". According to Espiritu. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that your grass and your plants bounce up when the weather warms up.

Although it is tempting to feed the plants all year round, it could make your garden in the long run, declares the landscape architectKate Karam, editorial director of the gardening siteMonrovia. Instead, she suggests skipping the fertilizer during the colder months of the year. "You will be rewarded with larger flowers early next year," Karam said.

If you live on a road that is salted or you have a property that results in a saltwater body, try adding tolerant plants to the saddle at the perimeter of your lawn or garden to protect the rest of your vegetation. Karam suggests "specimens that can handle a salt bath", like paper birch, oriental red cedar, pitch pinion, black cherry, white oak and east cotton trees, or herbs like the Mave tide, Canada Mayflower, the primrose evening or the gold medal.

Want to see that these perennial plants grow healthy early next year? There is no time as the present to start planting. "The window of planting, especially perennials, begins to close," says Karam. "Go to a garden center now because the plants installed in the fall will be rooted and ready to make spring."

It's not just cold that you need to consider when it comes to preparing your yard for winter - these brutal winds can be as harmful. In order to prevent them from ruining your plants, "attach yourself or stickers or great perennials such as Clematis," says Karam. This will ensure that these icy bursts do not offer in their untimely disappearance.

If the cold and the gel do not kill your plants in winter, the deer will definitely be. LandscapeDouglas Dedrick, founder ofThis American lawn Warning only with their limited food sources by the cold, many deer will make their way in the gardens looking for subsistence. And it's not just your vegetables that they will be after: "Even deer" plants "like Arborvitae are on the menu when the deer hunger", explains Dedrick. To help keep them, install the anti-cerf fence before the first snow or use a liquid deer repellent to dissuade them.

If you want your grass to look luxuriant and healthy spring, it pays to aerate your lawn before the temperature starts drip. First, grate the thatch, which is a layer of material that is built between grass and ground. The thatch will help "the grass to better push by allowing nutrients and in the water to get more easily to the roots of the grass", explains the gardenerSusan Brandtco-founder ofSecrets in bloom. After doing so, use a ventilation tool to allow you to enter the ground, which facilitates oxygen, moisture and essential nutrients to make a path to the root of the grass.

Tender ampoules, such as cannas, gladiolus and dahlias, do not burst well under the gel, so before it is too cold outside, it is important to dig them and keep them safely at the interior until spring.

When their leaves became black, Brandt recommends that gardeners "thoroughly dig them and let them dry inside on a newspaper for a few days." After they are sufficiently dried, pack them in shredded newspapers and keep them in a dark and slightly wet place, like a basement. When the temperature warms up in the spring, throw all the bulbs that have a rot and replacing those that are still in good shape.

While you might assume that winter will kill all the parasites in your garden, this is not the case. In fact, not removing the decomposition vegetation or the vegetation of your garden from your garden could mean in trouble from spring. "Plants that are no longer viablecould raise insects And diseases, "says Brandt, who notes that harmful organisms will generally deposit their eggs in the leaves and stems of a plant, which means it is important to pull them through the root.

However, this does not mean that all these worst forest plants must go to waste. Instead, Brandt suggests mixing them in your soil for the future.