Landscaping: Winter Checklist

Even though the cold winter weather may make landscaping the last thing on your mind, there are few landscaping things you should do for the winter months. A little landscaping maintenance can help your yard to be at its best in the spring. It is all about planning ahead.

1. Before the freeze hits, plant your spring bulbs.  Map out where you want the blooms to be when warm weather returns.  Bulbs are typically planted at a depth 3 to 4 times their height. This protects them from harsh winter weather.

2. Aerate, seed, and fertilize your lawn before the freeze, too. This is a very important part of landscaping that should not be neglected. Aerating is needed to loosen the soil so the seeds can get in deep to grow. The fertilizer prepares the grass for spring growth.

3. Drain and store your water hoses and blow out the irrigation systems. Leftover water can freeze and cause damage, which can be expensive to a sprinkler system.

4. Bring in container plants that accented your landscaping. They cannot take the cold nights of winter.

5. Pull up any dead annuals. If you have a compost pile, add them to it so the dead plants can be used to fertilize the new growth in the spring.

6. Weed the vegetable garden and flower beds one last time for the season.

7. Clean up any debris in your yard that can be hidden by the snow and cause damage or disease.

8. Protect any sensitive plants in your landscaping by mulching or using a screen. Several inches of mulch or soil gathered around most plants should do the trick, but for the very delicate it helps to cover with a screen.

Winter landscaping is a lot like helping your plants and flowers to hibernate for the cold weather. You are settling them in and helping them to stay warm for the winter months so that there will be a burst of bloom in the spring to greet you.