How To Prepare Your Trees And Shrubs For Winter

Since the Autumn has just arrived, you might think that it is a little premature to think about to prepare your trees and shrubs for the winter, but it is not.

To take some small steps in your garden or your landscape, would be a pretty good idea, just in case. The time seems to just fly away so fast, that before you know it Thanksgiving will be here, and then you'll start preparing for the Christmas season.

So, how should we start and where? Well, pretty soon the leaves are going to start changing their colors, turning yellow or red, other brown and will begin to drop off. There'll be some raking to do and piling them up in the compost pile in to corner of your garden, or any other place that you chose for that purpose.

The leaves that you are going to gather could very well serve a double purpose.

First, you can use them as mulch around the base of the trees and shrubs, to protect the root system from the harsh winter elements, that will surely come. You can put a layer of 2 to 3 inch thick to make sure the plants are well protected.

Second, they will eventually decay, and the nutrients will seep down to the roots.

Thirdly, the leaves are an excellent material for composting for future use in your garden. As the soil is depleted of the nutrients, they must be replaced, if you want to have a good crop of fresh vegetables for next season.

But before you place the mulching around the trees and shrubs, make sure that you cultivate around the base with a hoe and get rid of them pesky weeds.

For mulching you can use not only leaves, even so they are preferable because of the several benefits described above, but if you don't have enough of them, you can also use pine straws. A good layer of about 3 to 4 inches will be fine.

After you cultivated and got rid of the weeds, the mulching will keep control of other weeds by not allowing them to pop up again.

Another thing that needs to be done to prepare for the winter, is pruning. But the pruning of the trees and shrubs is better if it is done when the plants are in a dormant state.

As far as the time to do pruning, it all depends on the region of the world where you live.

Make sure that you prune the dead limbs and branches, the limbs that are crossing each other, and for the sake of making them look good. Or some of the shrubs that are over grown, you might want to cut them back.

By pruning and trimming you will encourage new healthy growth and it is beneficial to all the plants. They will grow more robust.

So there is a lot to do in a garden or in a landscape for that matter, but if you do it a little at a time you can make some progress, and when the Holiday season is coming you don't have to be stressed out and be worry about your garden.

These are just a few tips and ideas as how to prepare your trees and shrubs for the winter.

I trust that you enjoyed this article and it helped you with a few good ideas.

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