A 10 Step Plan to Clean Up Your Fall Garden for Spring

Time to Put Those Plants to Bed for the Winter

Just like spring housecleaning, a garden needs some TLC and fall garden cleanup so that next spring when new plants are bursting forth they'll have a neat and tidy home for the coming year, free from disease and bugs. Whether you have one small flower bed or 10 there are some very easy things that can become part of your fall garden clean-up.

A huge part of the clean up of your fall garden is harvesting seeds and preparing to propagate new starts for the spring. Perhaps you've got a huge amount of iris and decide to exchange some bulbs with your neighbor. Gardeners like to exchange and share. It's one way we can afford all those plants in our yard.

Step one: Assess the garden for changes next year

I take pen and paper and walk around assessing how plants grew this past growing season. From my garden notebook, I note when I planted things, how they thrived or didn't thrive and whether I need to make changes in my garden plan. Perhaps I need to move that new lavender to a sunnier area or the bee mint is taking over the herb garden and I need to dig it up and divide it and give some away! I begin doing this assessment in August and finalize it in September. At the same time I make notes of where they are holes or if I want to start a new bed or make a bed smaller.

Step two: Harvest seeds

Harvest seeds from those plants that you want the seeds. Perhaps you are a seed saver and exchange seeds with friends. There are certain annuals that grow each year from seeds and you might want those to resow in the spring. Cornflower or Bachelor's Buttons are a good example of this, but also black eyed Susans, which will reseed themselves but sometimes it's sporadic, so I like to give them a helping hand by adding in seed that I saved.

Step three: Propagate plants from stem cuttings and division

Start stem cuttings from plants like Sedum, butterfly bush, forsythia and asters. I cut them and then begin the stem propagation in November or December in the greenhouse. Even if you don't have a greenhouse you can start them in cold frames or even indoors.