9 Winter Gardening Tips To Keep Your Plants Pristine

Plant Life Rosemary Calvert/Photodisc/Getty Images Frost and snow don’t mean things won’t grow. by Ashley Jones Dec. 9, 2022

Shutterstock Though you may need to bundle up to do it, it’s important to keep your garden in the best shape possible to prepare for new spring growth. These winter gardening tips can help.

Add compost and mulch early in the season to prep your garden for winter and keep root temperatures stable, but don’t fertilize. Many garden plants go dormant in winter, so they won’t need it anyway. Shutterstock

Shutterstock Cover flowering and fragile plants when the forecast indicates a freeze is headed your way, suggests The Old Farmer’s Almanac. Use an old sheet or frost cloth to protect plants with buds or open flowers.

Bring potted plants indoors for the winter. Place them in an area away from heat vents where they can get indirect light, or rotate them according to their individual light needs. Shutterstock

Try winter sowing your seeds. You can use recycled containers to make a mini greenhouse, suggests Garden Design, and allow snow and sleet to water seeds for frost-tolerant vegetables like kale or cabbage. Shutterstock

When a freeze is forecasted, water your garden ahead of the temperature drop, recommends Better Homes & Gardens. When the ground freezes, the moisture will have already taken up residence in the plant’s roots. Qi Yang/Moment/Getty Images

Coolpicture/Moment/Getty Images Plant bare root trees and shrubs during the winter, Bobvila.com suggests. Despite being dormant right now, they’ll establish roots in time for spring.

By late winter, many flowering shrubs and small trees in your garden will be ready to prune , according to Garden Design. Be sure to trim stems with sharp tools, completely removing any diseased or weak stems. Shutterstock

Want to relocate a shrub or small tree to another part of your garden or yard? Prior to the first freeze of winter is the best time for this task, according to Bobvila.com. Ninel Naidiuk / EyeEm/EyeEm/Getty Images

Winter is a great time to organize your gardening supplies. Catch up on gardening maintenance tasks like sharpening blades and labeling containers to get fully-prepared for the spring season. Shutterstock

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