Expert Advice: 7 Tips To Make Your Garden Bed In The Winter

Every summer, Cape Cod landscape designer Tim Kallis creates beautiful gardens for Outer Cape's creative class: writers, teachers, architects, and New York designers (including decoupage artist and furniture designer John Darian) visit their gardens during the warmer months. Enjoy the flowers and harvest dinner from the vegetable and herb patches.

Every fall, Kallis lags behind in preparation for the harsh New England winter. Blizzards, high winds, blizzards, and blizzards all want to destroy his gardens. But good luck. Over the years, Kallis has devised a goofy plan to prevent severe winter damage. “We are cleaning up a very serious fall,” he says. It puts it lightly.

After the first true frost of the season - which usually occurs at Thanksgiving - he goes to the garden if he has to cut, mow, store or mulch anything. How does he decide? Here are seven key pointers in moving your garden through the winter:

Give Evergreens a haircut

Kallis cuts hair at the end of the season for Evergreen. "If your boxwood or ilex needs a little trim, this is a good time to design it," says Kallis. "Make sure the hedge or any hedge is clean."

Allow one last breath to the grass

Seed pods and ornamental grasses are beautifully covered with snow. Kallis left the grass and said, “After two fiber easters things will look like rats. Then you go inside and cut it to the ground.

Depending on the severity of the storms of a season, the grass cleaning date may be late February or early December. “When beautiful ornamental grass looks tired and miserable, it’s time,” Kallis says. "Of course don't leave it until April, it's too late because you want to allow new growth to come."

Feed the soil

Kallis mows paths and garden beds with straw, which will break in a season. “You can let it sit on top of the beds for the winter, and then in the spring it crumbles easily into the soil,” he says.

Autumn is a good time to add compost to garden beds. "There may be a 1-inch puddle of a peony plant, and you can spray compost on the outside of the crown and let it sit there," says Kallis. "Then, when there's a lot of other things to do in the spring, the soil in the beds does not need to work much."

Divide and conquer

After the perennials have stopped flowering, it is best to separate the crowded clusters. Kallis divides and relocates the hostess, phlox, and daisies in the fall. "It's a mess, but you did not get hurt when you cut the plant," he says. "Plants go dormant at this time of year, so you can dig them out and adjust them to separate their roots. You can't say you killed a plant in the spring or fall.

Organize Wisteria

“Actually you should never ignore Wisteria,” says Kallis. "Deep down it's a thug, it wants to conquer the world.

Ideally, you should prune the wisteria two or three times during the growing season. So in late autumn, all you have to deal with is "the outer, long, slender stems that come from the main shoots," says Kallis. "You want to control it."

Also, check the base of the plant for runners. Every 8 to 12 inches, wisteria takes root and grows into another plant, which is a dream come true.

“A beautiful wisteria stem is amazing even without the foliage,” says Kallis. “Leave the seed pods. Let them hang like chandelier earrings until April.

Wait for the trees to be pruned

The best time to prune most trees is late winter or early spring when he looks at their structure without leaves to distract the eye. "As for fruit trees, after President's Day, you have grapes and then fruit trees."

The exception is when something sweeps the house or hits the roof. Remove those branches before the storm season begins.