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Winterizing Your Lower Mainland Garden

© Susan Ward

If you live in Northern B.C., you've already put your your garden to bed, but here in the Lower Mainland the garden beds are still flush with blooms. Just because winter often seems to get off to a slower start here though doesn't mean it's not coming, so before the severe storms start, here's a list of things you should be doing while you can to winterize your lower mainland garden.

1. If you have lilies and peonies, cut them down. Dispose of the dead stalks and leaves off-site or by burning them to avoid spreading disease through your beds. Find out more about lilies in "Growing Lilies On The West Coast".

2. Cut down, dig up and store your winter-tender bulbs and tubers, such as dahlias, begonias, and gladiolas. "Use A Dahlia Log To Organize Your Dig" gives detailed information about digging and storing dahlias.

3. Clean up your perennials, cutting off stems and removing dead leaves. Mulch them well with well-rotted compost or manure.

4. Lift and divide those perennials that need it (either because they're getting huge or because they're not flowering as vigorously as they should).

5. If you have roses, prune those that bloom on the previous season's wood, such as true ramblers, old garden roses, species roses, and some of the modern shrub roses. Clean up the others, such as hybrid teas, removing any dead wood or damaged shoots. (Roses that bloom on the current season's growth, such as hybrid teas, can be pruned in the spring.) You'll find more about winterizing roses in "Fall and Winter Care For Roses".

6. Feed your heavy feeding shrubs, such as lilacs, with bone meal.

7. Pull up and compost all your annuals that you're not going to over-winter.

8. Pot up the annuals you want to save, such as geraniums, and bring them indoors for the winter. "Overwintering Annuals" tells how to keep your geraniums and fuschias healthy over the winter.

9. Burlap wrap any slightly-tender shrubs, such as palms, and move any very tender shrubs, such as bay laurel, indoors.

10. Inspect your trees, shrubs, etc. in terms of their stability in the face of the coming storms, and stake and wire up any that need more support.

11. Rake and compost leaves, especially those that clog garden beds. Clumps of soggy leaves around your plants will cause them to rot. See "Don't Waste Those Leaves" for more about composting leaves.

12. Aerate and lime your lawn if you haven't already done so.

13. Cultivate and enrich the soil of any areas that you plan to plant in the spring. Planting a cover crop such as winter rye is a good idea.

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