How to Winterize Your Garden: A 10-Step Fall Checklist

Winterizing a garden comes down to ten jobs done in the right order: clear the spent and diseased growth, weed one last time, lift the tender bulbs, decide what to cut back, mulch, shield the young shrubs and roses, drain the hoses and barrels, put the tools away clean, cover the vegetable beds, and write down what went where. Most of it happens in the two or three weeks between the first light frost and the ground freezing hard.

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The payoff shows up in April: fewer overwintered pests and diseases, bulbs that survived, and tools that work the first time you reach for them. While the shed is open, check the snow gear too; our snow shovel picks cover what to have by the door before the first storm. Which cover crop to sow, and how to kill it in spring, is in our cover crops guide.

When to winterize a garden

Start after the first light frost has knocked down the annuals and finish before the ground freezes solid: roughly October in the upper Midwest and New England, November in the mid-Atlantic and central states, and December or later across the South. Two jobs break the pattern: cover crops go in four to six weeks before the first frost, and winter mulch on perennial beds goes on after the ground has frozen.

If frost is in the forecast tonight, our guide on how to protect plants from frost covers the emergency version: water in the afternoon, cover before dusk, uncover in the morning.

The 10-step fall garden cleanup checklist

1. Pull spent annuals and anything diseased

Pull frost-killed annuals, roots and all, and pull or cut the vegetable plants that are done. Be strict with tomatoes, squash, cucumbers and beans. They carry blight, mildew and bacterial spots through winter on dead stems and fallen fruit. Anything that showed disease goes in the trash or municipal yard waste, not the home compost pile, which rarely gets hot enough to kill it. Healthy material goes straight into the compost bin.

2. Do the final weeding

Weeds that go into winter alive come out of it with a head start, and the ones that set seed in October plant next year's crop for you. Make one slow last pass while the soil is still workable. A long-handled draw hoe like the Spear Head Hoe slices annual weeds off at the root line while you stand, and its rake side levels the bed behind you. Deep-rooted perennial weeds such as dandelion, dock and bindweed need to come out whole: loosen beside them with a spade and lift, because a hoe only snaps them off to regrow.

3. Harvest the last crops and lift tender bulbs and tubers

Harvest what frost will ruin: peppers, green tomatoes to ripen indoors, and winter squash. Leave kale, collards, Brussels sprouts, carrots, leeks and parsnips, which sweeten after a frost.

Then lift the tender bulbs and tubers that will not survive frozen soil: dahlias, cannas, gladiolus, caladiums, elephant ears and tuberous begonias. Wait until the first frost blackens the foliage, cut the stems back to about six inches, then push a sharp spade straight down in a circle a foot out from the stem and lever the clump up from underneath. The pointed, sharpened blade on our D-handle spade gets under a dahlia clump in heavy soil and cuts the anchoring roots cleanly, where a garden fork tends to spear the tubers. Dry the clumps in a shaded, airy spot for a few days, pack them in peat moss or dry wood shavings, store them between about 40 and 50 degrees, and label every clump now.

4. Cut back some perennials and leave the rest

The old advice was to cut everything to the ground. The better answer is selective. Cut back perennials that carry disease or pests over winter: peonies for botrytis, bearded iris for the borer eggs on the leaves, hostas once the leaves go to mush, and anything that had mildew. Cut a few inches above the crown and remove the debris.

Leave standing anything that gives structure, seed or shelter. Coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, sedum and ornamental grasses feed finches through winter, and their hollow stems house overwintering native bees. Leave marginally hardy plants alone too: chrysanthemums, lavender, Russian sage and butterfly bush overwinter far better with their old growth intact, pruned in spring once new growth shows the live wood.

Fall is also the time to divide overgrown clumps and move anything in the wrong place. Our guide to transplanting shrubs and perennials in fall covers it.

5. Mulch the beds after the ground freezes

Winter mulch on perennial beds is not there to keep the soil warm. It is there to keep the soil frozen, so thaw and freeze cycles do not heave shallow-rooted plants like coral bells and mums out of the ground. That is why it goes on late, after the top inch or two of soil has frozen, usually late November into December in the north.

Two to three inches of shredded leaves, bark, straw or evergreen boughs is plenty. Keep it a few inches back from crowns and trunks so it does not hold moisture against them or give voles a covered runway to the bark. New fall plantings, including tulip bulbs and garlic, get the deepest layer, four to six inches, because their roots are the shallowest.

6. Protect young shrubs, broadleaf evergreens and roses

Established trees and shrubs need nothing. The ones that need help are plantings from the last year or two, broadleaf evergreens such as rhododendron and boxwood in exposed spots, and roses in cold regions.

Water evergreens deeply before the ground freezes, since winter damage on them is usually drying, not cold. Where wind or afternoon sun is the problem, drive stakes on the exposed side and staple burlap to them as a screen, never tight against the foliage. Wrap the trunks of young thin-barked trees such as maples and fruit trees with paper tree wrap against sunscald and rabbits.

For roses, stop feeding by late summer and stop deadheading in September so the plants harden off. After a couple of hard frosts, mound eight to twelve inches of soil or compost over the base of grafted roses to protect the graft union. Shrub roses in zone 5 and warmer usually need only mulch.

7. Drain and store hoses, drip lines and sprinklers

Water left in a hose freezes and splits it. Disconnect every hose, drain it, coil it loosely and hang it in the garage or shed. Shut off the interior valve for each outdoor spigot, then open the spigot outside to drain the line. Drip irrigation gets flushed, drained at its low points and left open. Bring in the timer, filter and pressure regulator, which crack first, along with sprinklers and nozzles.

8. Drain the rain barrels

A full rain barrel cracks when it freezes, and the spigot goes first. Empty every barrel, leave the spigot open, and disconnect the downspout diverter so winter runoff goes down the downspout and away from the foundation. Store the barrel upside down, or leave it in place with the lid off so it cannot collect water.

9. Clean, sharpen and oil your tools

Tools go into winter clean, dry and oiled or they come out of it rusty. Knock off the soil, wash with a stiff brush, dry completely, and take rust off with steel wool. Sharpen the tools that need it: a mill file at the original bevel angle restores the edge on pruners, loppers, hoes and a standard shovel. If you own a Spear Head Spade, skip that step. The blade is pre-sharpened at the factory to a 35 degree bevel along the entire edge, tip to tail, and the powder coat is designed to wear away gradually and keep exposing that factory edge, so it never needs sharpening. A regular file will not touch the steel anyway; our best shovels for digging guide explains why. The Spear Head Hoe is the exception: if rocks nicked the edges this season, run a knife sharpener or metal file down either long side, and wear garden gloves when you do it.

Wipe every steel surface with a thin coat of camellia oil or light machine oil, rub wooden handles with boiled linseed oil, and store everything out of the weather. The hoe's stainless head will develop a surface rust if left out in rain or moisture for an extended period, so hang it in the shed or garage with the rest. The full routine, rust removal included, is in our tool cleaning, sharpening and storage guide.

10. Cover the vegetable beds and plan for spring

Bare soil over winter erodes, crusts and loses nutrients to leaching. Cover it. If you are four to six weeks ahead of your first frost, sow a cover crop. Winter rye is the toughest and can go in latest, even a week or two after the first frost in the north; oats and field peas sown earlier winter-kill and leave a mulch you can plant straight through. Where it is too late for seed, spread three to four inches of shredded leaves instead. Whole leaves mat and shed water, so run them over with a mower first. A good leaf rake and a tarp move a lot of leaves quickly.

Then walk the beds with a notebook. Sketch what grew where so you can rotate next year, note the varieties that earned their space, push a labeled stake beside every dormant perennial, and order garlic and spring seed while the good varieties are still in stock.

Common questions

When should you winterize your garden?

Start after the first light frost has killed the annuals and finish before the ground freezes hard, which is roughly October in the north and November to December further south. Sow cover crops four to six weeks before the first frost, and put winter mulch on perennial beds after the ground has frozen.

Should you cut back perennials in the fall?

Cut back the ones that carry disease or pests through winter: peonies, bearded iris, mushy hostas and anything that had mildew. Leave coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, sedum and ornamental grasses standing for birds and overwintering insects, and leave marginally hardy plants like mums, lavender and Russian sage untouched until spring.

Can you leave leaves on garden beds over winter?

Yes, and it is one of the best winter mulches there is, as long as the leaves are shredded first. Whole leaves mat into a wet layer that sheds water and smothers crowns. Run them over with a mower, spread two to four inches on beds, and keep them a few inches back from perennial crowns.

Do you need to water the garden in winter?

Only in dry spells, and only when the ground is not frozen. Evergreens and anything planted this fall benefit from a deep watering once or twice a month in a dry winter, on a day above 40 degrees. Established perennials and lawns need nothing. Use a watering can, or bring a hose out and drain it again afterward.

The bottom line

Winterizing a garden is one long weekend of unglamorous jobs: clear, weed, lift, cut selectively, mulch late, screen the young and tender, drain everything that holds water, oil the steel, cover the soil and write it down. Do them in that order and the garden you open in spring is clean and ready to plant. The tool that carries most of the list, from lifting dahlias to breaking ground for garlic, is a sharp spade. Ours is the double-patented Spear Head Spade, with over 600,000 sold, and it goes into winter like everything else: clean, dry and hung on the wall.