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Homes: Getting Your Lawn and Garden Ready for Winter

Here are some suggestions for getting your garden ready for next year:

• Clean up the garden. Cut back soft plants, annuals, perennials, and groundcovers close to ground. Leave taller, stiffer plants standing.
• Use an organic mulch in shrub and perennial beds to cover plants. Use your leaves or compost.
• Water your plants generously. The leaves are falling, but the feeder roots are still active
• Apply a winter fertilizer to your lawn. It should be a low nitrogen "Winter" blend, not your regular summer fertilizer. High potassium rating stimulates strong roots.

• Don't prune plants in the fall. It creates too much stress, and creates cuts for bugs to enter.
• Don't cover the roses too early. Let them prepare for winter on their own and cover well once the ground is frozen.
• Don't till the soil in the fall. Let surface plant material hold the soil together to protect from wind and water erosion.