Tips for winter gardening

January 26, 2021| Environment

By: Marty Kane

Below are some top tips for winter gardening compliments of our friends over at the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary (Lake Hopatcong is part of the Delaware River watershed).  

• Leave the leaves, sticks, and twigs alone for overwintering critters. If you need to move leaves, move them onto your perennial beds as mulch. 
   
• Many creatures use fallen leaves as their homes over the winter months. Leaves provide protection from predators and insulation from freezing temperatures. When we remove leaves, we are removing habitat for some of those creatures (primarily insects, but also some mammals and reptiles). You can either completely leave them be, or move the leaves to your garden beds as free mulch! 
   
• Check your gardens for debris, as well as clogs in your rain gardens.  
   
• Winter is a good time for pruning many shrubs and trees. So on a nice day feel free to go out and do some pruning.  Prune shade trees, such as oak, sweetgum, and maple in late winter or early spring. Wait to prune spring-flowering trees or shrubs, such as dogwood, redbud, cherry, pear, and magnolia, azalea, lilac, rhododendron, quince, and forsythia. Those you should prune immediately after blooming ends. Prune all evergreens, except pine, before new growth starts in the spring or during the semi-dormant period in mid-summer. Prune pines in the spring as new growth emerges.
   
• If there is intense wind, check on the mulch levels of any newly established plants that could be susceptible to freeze. 
   
• Start planning for next year! Create those drawings, make those plant shopping lists (the Lake Hopatcong Foundations annual native plant sale is coming in May!), and take stock of your current plantings. Consider any maintenance adjustments that are needed, and plan accordingly.  For example, did those asters get too big? Might write yourself a reminder to prune mid-season, so they stay more manageable.