Garden Tips: Put the yard, garden to bed for the winter

I occasionally get asked to give a presentation on putting the yard and garden to bed for the winter. Fall garden chores are simple and can be designated as should-do and good-to-do. Here are the should-do’s for fall:

▪ Rake leaves: If you have a number of trees like I do, the leaves pile up. The leaves tend to blow around and pile up at my back door and elsewhere in the landscape. As the Mid-Columbia starts to get more dew and moisture, these leaves can mat down and smother the grass and other plants. Rake the leaves, and consider using them for compost or tilling them into your vegetable garden soil, where they will decompose over the winter and help improve the soil.

▪ Mow the grass: After the stress of a hot summer, your lawn needs all the help it can get. You should keep mowing if the lawn is growing. Do not mow the grass extra short and then put the mower away. Also, do not leave it extra long, because this can lead to matted grass and favorable conditions for snow mold. (This past spring, snow mold fungus showed up and caused significant damage.) Mow at the recommended height of about 2.5 inches until you no longer need to mow. The good news is that as the weather cools, you will not need to mow as often.

▪ Treat for broadleaf weeds: If broadleaf weeds, like dandelions or clover, have shown up all over your lawn, now is the time to treat these weeds with a herbicide spray. However, if you only have a few of these weeds here and there, dig them out by hand or pop them out with a weed popper.

Herbicide sprays for broadleaf weeds will not control grassy weeds. Annual grasses, such as crabgrass, will die with a hard frost, and will need to be controlled next spring with pre-emergent herbicides, or preventers, that will keep the seed from germinating and growing. Perennial grasses, such as Bermuda grass, are not controlled with fall chemical applications.

▪ Dig tender bulbs: Many of the tender bulbs, corms, rhizomes and tubers that we plant in our gardens, including cannas, calla lilies, gladiolas and dahlias, are tropical plants from warmer climates (Zones 7 to10), where they can stay in the ground during the winter. In cooler climates (Zones 6 and lower) like ours, they should be dug each fall and stored for the winter in a cool, dry protected location where they will not freeze. Some years in our area, these tubers and bulbs may survive if left in the ground and heavily mulched. However, if winter brings severely cold temperatures, they will be killed.

To store them, wait about two weeks after frost kills their tops and then carefully lift the tubers, rhizomes or corms from the soil; shake off as much of the soil as possible; rinse with clean water; and let dry in a protected dry spot. Place in cardboard boxes or paper bags using dry sawdust, wood shavings or peat moss for packing.

This story was originally published October 25, 2015 at 12:20 AM with the headline "Garden Tips: Put the yard, garden to bed for the winter."