Yard Prep for Winter Days Ahead

I fertilized the lawn with IFA's winter formula the beginning of October and it looks real healthy. Today, I cut the grass an extra 1" shorter to prepare for winter. This means less thatch and dead grass to rake off the lawn next spring. Yesterday, I shoveled snow from the lawn so I could mow it today. The lawn still was wet on the north side of the fences where the grass is in shade.

 I planted the pansy plants  a month ago and the daffodil bulbs. The court yard should look very colorful next spring.

 Over the last two days, I have removed all the flowers from the beds. It has taken a lot longer to do it this year. I usually like to have it done by the first weekend in October. I was fighting snow and wet plants which is not pretty. It is much easier to do it when the plants are dry.

I trimmed back the rose bushes, taking the candelabras off and leaving the rest of the plant. I will need to prune the plant again in late February or early March depending on the weather

 I cut the shasta daisy plants to the ground and also the iris plants.

 I trimmed back to the ground the peony plants, the day lilies, and the hostas. I also trimmed back and rounded off the mugho pine as shown above.

I have been placing my grass clippings all summer and leaves into the garden this fall. After removing all the plants from the garden, I roto-tilled the organic material into the soil.

I did the same on this side of the garden, but left the carrots in the ground. We will harvest the balance in the spring.

I also cut down the strawberry plants. I have left the raspberry plants alone for now. I am going to try a new idea by the Cornaby raspberry farm and cut down all raspberry canes, not just the dead ones like I usually do, but all of them in the spring. This should give me one heavy crop of berries in late summer/early fall. I also painted the trunks of the trees white so the sunlight will be reflected off the tree in the winter time instead of the tree absorbing the heat from the sun and causing freeze/thaw problems with the tree before springtime. I ran out of paint on this tree (again) and just painted the side where the sun hits the tree.

 Here is another strawberry patch that I cut down to the ground. This will encourage new pants to grow from the existing root stock.

I pulled out 10 large bags of plants similar to this one and took it to the city dump/green waste today. This one, number 11, is full of leaves. I will roto-till these in the garden in the spring. I already have a lot of organic material to decompose in the soil for this year. Wow, I am getting slower or the work is getting harder, maybe both