If you live in a cold climate, apply mulch after the first hard freeze (28 degrees or lower). This will help keep the soil nice and cold until spring comes. In southern states, you don't have to wait until freezing temperatures hit.
When To Winterize Your Gardens. The best time to start winterizing gardens is after the first hard freeze in the fall. A hard freeze occurs when the temperature gets below freezing overnight, killing off tender annual plants and vegetables.
Late fall is the best time to winterize perennial plants. A hard frost can be the signal to prep the beds for winter. If below-freezing temperatures are forecasted overnight, or you wake up to frost on the ground, it's likely a good idea to winterize your perennials within the next few weeks.
It's important to cut back foliage in the fall to protect flowering plants from disease and give them a clean start for regrowth as winter starts to turn into spring. However, there are some plants you can keep around through the winter since they benefit wildlife and still offer visual interest for your home.
Also, do not cut back hardy perennials like garden mums (Chrysanthemum spp.), anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum), red-hot poker (Kniphofia uvaria), and Montauk daisy (Nipponanthemum nipponicum). Leave the foliage. It's important to protect the root crowns over winter.
Cover Plants – Protect plants from all but the hardest freeze (28°F for five hours) by covering them with sheets, towels, blankets, cardboard or a tarp. You can also invert baskets, coolers or any container with a solid bottom over plants. Cover plants before dark to trap warmer air.
To know when to cover your plants, you need to know when the plants you have are susceptible to frost damage. Some frost-tender plants need to be covered as soon as the temperature hits 32°F, while others can handle lower temperatures and/or longer freezing periods.
With that in mind, experts generally recommend flowers and other houseplants be brought inside or otherwise protected before the thermometer dips below 45 degrees Fahrenheit. For warmer-weather and tropical plants, that threshold is a bit higher, at around the 50-degree mark.
Cover Up the Garden Beds
Although many of us end up adding it in the spring, you really want to add compost in late autumn in order to let the soil soak up those nutrients over the winter. Add a couple inches of compost or manure on top of your beds any time before the ground freezes.
Spading or tilling the soil in the fall allows for the winter conditions of freezing and thawing to naturally break the soil into its particles. This results in crumbly state desirable for spring planting. Soil is often damp or wet in the spring which makes deep spading more difficult.
For instance, you could cover the plant with an old comforter and then a sheet of plastic. No matter what you use, it is important to uncover the plant after the threat of frost has passed so the plant can get light as well as to prevent heat build up under the canopy once the sun comes out.
The answer is, yes, depending on what plants you have. If you live in an area that gets snowfall during the winter months, many experts recommend covering your raised beds with a thick layer of mulch or plastic to protect your sensitive plants from potential damage.
Once temperatures drop below 40°F, you may want to start covering your plants with a frost blanket depending on what you're growing, which we'll get into in just a bit. Freeze – A freeze is when the air temperature is 32°F or below.
Winter time is very hard on flowers. They just do not like any temperature below freezing. Don't get me wrong flowers like it cold. Flowers are happiest in temperatures of 40-50 degrees.
Light freeze - 29° to 32° Fahrenheit will kill tender plants. Moderate freeze - 25° to 28° Fahrenheit is widely destructive to most vegetation. Severe or hard freeze - 25° Fahrenheit and colder causes heavy damage to most plants.
When Should You Cover Plants? Cover your plants at night and remove them during the day when the temperatures rise above 32 degrees F, so that the soil can warm up again. Some outdoor plants won't survive the harsh conditions of winter, bring them inside and use these tips for caring for them through winter.
I did some research and found out that houseplants need to be taken indoors before overnight temperatures dip below 45 degrees. Most tropical plants suffer harm from temperatures below 40 degrees.
Some perennials, like hostas, peonies and daylilies, need to be pruned in fall to avoid winter damage. Plants like these should be pruned after the first few frosts in late fall or early winter. Other perennials like mums and coneflowers are better off being pruned in spring just before new growth comes in.
It's common to think that everything should be chopped down to the ground in the fall, but some perennials actually need their foliage to protect new shoots through the winter. Other varieties offer up important habitat for local wildlife and some perennials provide height and interest through the winter months.
When to Cut Back Hostas. As a general rule, hostas should be cut back in the late fall. Start with leaves that have wilted or turned brown. Healthy leaves can stay a bit longer to help the roots store needed energy.