15 Fall Cleanup Tasks for a Better Spring Garden
1. Do an honest evaluation of your garden
What worked this year? What wouldn’t you repeat next year? Do yourself a favor and start a list now that you can use when you shop next spring
Fall is also a good time of year to evaluate:
Which plants need to be divided
Which plants should be moved to a better spot in the garden
Where you need more privacy or screening for less-than-ideal views
Where you could use more plants with fall color/interest
2. Rake, shred, and mulch with leaves
Nature delivers natural mulch at our feet every fall when deciduous trees drop their leaves. Finely textured leaves from willow trees or honey locusts will easily degrade on their own and don’t need to be raked. But broad leaves from maple, sycamore, oak trees and the like become matted down and take a long time to decompose on their own, potentially smothering your grass and perennials. These kinds of leaves should be raked out of garden beds and mowed on the lawn.
It may seem counterintuitive, but it's a good idea to spread the shredded leaves back onto your garden beds as mulch in late fall as the ground begins to freeze. Doing so will keep weeds at bay, insulate your plants over the winter months, and enrich the soil as the leaves break down. Using shredded leaves to feed the compost file and also as mulch on garden beds to feed earthworms, beneficial microbes, and the soil. What doesn’t decompose over winter can be cleaned up in spring and the volume of leaves will be greatly reduced. Remember: Leaves are garden gold!
The most efficient way to use leftover leaves is to add them to a compost pile—along with your grass clippings, vegetable waste, annual weeds, straw, and other organic matter. Once decomposed, the compost makes wonderful, free, nutrient-rich plant food.
Before the snows fall, turn your compost and cover your compost bin with tarp so that all that work is stored for spring!
You can also create leaf mold with leaves. Unlike compost, a mix of different organic matter, leaf mold is made purely of decomposing leaves. See how to make leaf mold
Don’t be a perfectionist. Some leaf litter is natural and allows our pollinators (butterflies, ladybugs, etc.) to nestle to overwinter. And the more insects you have, the more feathered friends can feast, too. However, you shouldn’t leave thick layers of leaves on your lawn; this blocks sunlight and air from reaching your grass but also encourage disease. If your lawn is being buried, the lack of light and the trapped moisture can put the grass into a weakened state to survive yet another winter.
3. De-Thatch, Weed, Fertilize, and Overseed Lawns
If you do have a lawn, de-thatch in the fall. Thatch is that yellowish-brown grass that lies underneath the living, green grass. It’s important to avoid thatch buildup, as it keeps nutrients and water from filtering down to the grass’s roots. Vigorously rake out the thatch on cool-season grasses in the early fall. This gives the grass time to recover from the stress of being de-thatched.
Early autumn is the best time to lightly fertilize your lawn to promote root growth and prepare it for the next growing season. Don’t wait until spring, as the fertilizer will be less effective then. In the fall, your grass needs to recover from the summer heat and can best use the nutrients provided by a fertilizer. Use a turf builder or fertilizer meant for winterizing lawns. It’s also a good time to overseed your lawn so that it’s thicker and lusher next season. To overseed, first cut your grass shorter than usual, then remove the grass clippings and lightly spread seed across the entire lawn with a fertilizer spreader, following instructions on the grass seed bag for overseeding. Keep lightly watered until new growth is at least 3 inches tall.
If you have serious soil compaction, you also may need to aerate your lawn, which requires renting a lawn aerator from a home improvement store to create holes that will deliver oxygen, water, and nutrients into your soil.
4. save seeds and pollinators
If you are busy deadheading your flowers, stop! Take a look at the seed heads that you are cutting off. Instead of removing these seed heads, let some of them ripen until they turn brown and split open. These seed capsules are like salt shakers full of tiny seeds. Scatter the seeds anywhere that you would like them to grow or just let them drop where they are. And leave some dried seed heads for the birds, too! Also, leave many of your flowers and plants through the winter for the pollinators. Native bees will “hibernate” in the hollow stem of a bee balm plant, butterflies will overwinter in a chrysalis hanging from a dead plant, birds will flit around spent sunflowers, and caterpillars will roll into the seed pod of milkweed plant.
Another option is to dry some of those flowers, seed heads, and herbs, especially from plants like hydrangea and yarrow. Then you can enjoy the beautiful dried blooms indoors during the winter.
5. WINTERIZE GARDEN BEDS
Clean up your vegetable beds. While ornamental beds can show off their winter beauty, veggie beds need to be cleaned up. In the flower garden, wait until the first hard, killing frost and remove the diseased plant material while it is still limp and does not crumble. This will help with disease control for next season. If perennials are completely buried, it will be necessary to rake or broom and knock the leaves off the tops of plants.
It’s good to put a thin layer of leaves over smaller garden beds to protect the topsoil and enrich the soil. Just be careful to use only a thin layer of leaves; you don’t want to create a habitat for diseases and pests. Finally, many gardeners will cover their beds with old carpet, tarp, or landscape fabric to ensure that no sunlight gets to pesky weed seeds and that you have a clean slate with which to work come spring!
6. CLEAN YOUR GUTTERS
Ensure that your gutters are clear of fall leaves, especially before the snow falls. Otherwise, you may have bigger problems as ice dams form. Remove leaves around your house’s foundation, too, and in other places that invite rotting and mold. The easiest way to clear out blockages is to use a leaf blower with a rain gutter attachment.
7. WINTERIZE TREES AND SHRUBS
In regions with heavy snow, you want to give your trees and shrubs the best chance of surviving. Do not prune trees and shrubs. Even if they look a little overgrown, wait until next spring. Pruning involves removing tissue and opening wounds in a plant that still has the winter to contend with. The injuries have no time to heal and could weaken or kill the shrub or tree. Pruning also stimulates a tree or shrub to attempt to grow and any new growth produced in the fall is likely to be killed because it has not had any time to harden off or become woodier.
Cover small trees and deciduous shrubs with a wooden structure to protect them from heavy snow. Or, circle them with a cylinder of chicken wire fencing and fill in the space between the tree and the fence with straw or leaves. Or, drive stakes into the ground at four corners around the plant and wrap burlap or heavy plastic around the stakes, securing it at the top, center, and bottom with twine. For young fruit trees, it’s often a good idea to wrap the lower trunk of the tree with a pestproof tree wrap, which will prevent mice and voles from gnawing on the tree’s bark during the winter. Slow down any watering in early fall; once the trees’ leaves have dropped (but before the ground freezes), give all trees and shrubs a deep watering, covering the entire canopy area.
8. CLEAN and winterize YOUR TOOLS and hoses
Last but not least, late autumn is the best time to clean your tools! If you have a lawn mower, drain out the gas. Clean, sand, and oil your garden tools before storing them for the winter. We all know that underground irrigation systems need to be winterized. Blowing out sprinkler systems is one of those essential fall garden tasks no doubt. But you should also take the time to drain garden hoses, and store them in a garage or shed if you have room. This will extend the life of your hose, and we all know how expensive it is to buy a new garden hose. Be sure to shut off water to exterior hose bibs.
9. Remove annuals from containers and landscapes
It was a great run, but by the time fall rolls around, it’s time for the annuals to go and store your pots away for winter. It can be tough to do since long bloomers can still look great in the fall, but once frost hits you’ll wish you had pulled them sooner. Healthy annuals can be composted; any diseased plants should be disposed of.
10. Fall is for planting!
Still-warm soil and relatively cool air temperatures promote healthy root growth in plants that return each year. Take advantage of end of season sales on trees and shrubs at local nurseries, and divide or move perennials around the garden in fall. Ideally, give the roots at least six weeks to settle into their new home before the ground freezes. Read more about fall planting in this article. It’s also the time to Plant spring blooming bulbs. Fall is the best time to plant spring flowering bulbs like tulips, daffodils, crocuses, and a wide variety of others you’ll find at your local garden center this time of year. If squirrels, voles or chipmunks are a problem in your garden, spray the bulbs with an animal repellant before you plant them or cover them with a layer of chicken wire to prevent animals from digging them back up.
11. Cut select perennials back
Once your perennials have gone dormant, it’s a good idea to clean at least some of their foliage out of garden beds. We typically cut them right down to the ground. This is especially important around plants like hostas that have received slug damage during the growing season. Slugs lay their eggs in the dormant foliage, and removing it in fall will cut down on slug issues the following year. Fall is not the best time to prune shrubs. DO NOT cut these perennials back in fall:
Evergreen or semi-evergreen perennials like coral bells and creeping phlox.
Perennials with woody stems like lavender and butterfly bush.
Perennials with winter interest like coneflowers, ornamental grasses, autumn stonecrop, and allium.
12. Dispose of diseased foliage
While most of the plants you cut back in fall can go in your compost pile, you’ll want to avoid putting any plants with diseased foliage there. That’s because most compost piles don’t heat up enough to kill diseases, and you don’t want to risk spreading them back into your garden next year. Gather as much of the diseased foliage as you can, bag and seal it, then dispose of it in the trash.
13. Continue to water the garden
While it might look like your plants are going to sleep, their roots are still actively growing in fall. Evergreen perennials, shrubs and trees, as well as anything you’ve recently planted, will need to be watered until the ground starts to freeze. If you live in an area that receives abundant rain in fall, you might not need to provide much supplemental water. But if rainfall is less reliable, water deeply at least once per week.
14. Protect sensitive and newly planted perennials and shrubs
If you’re pushing the hardiness zone on a few of your plants, heaping a pile of shredded leaves or evergreen boughs on top of them once they are dormant may help them make it through the winter. Additionally, it’s a good idea to mulch newly planted perennials and shrubs that aren’t well-rooted in yet to prevent the rootball from heaving out of the ground during the freeze/thaw cycles of winter. Mulch helps to keep the soil at a more consistent temperature.
15. Start dreaming about next year’s garden!
It’s never too early to start planning for spring. Hope springs eternal in the garden.