When it comes to preparing the Church lawns and gardens for winter, I tend to wait until after Thanksgiving has past. By then, the trees are beginning to lose their leaves and the lawn is starting to slow down its pace of growth. The weather by then is typically more fall like than summer like. There is the occasional overnight frost which will start to bring the fall colours into the leaves of the trees and garden perennials.
Every year, preparing the Church gardens for winter includes cutting back the Hosta plants’ leaves to the ground, cutting back the ornamental grasses and clearing this season`s growth from the Sedum plants and day lilies. While doing the cutting back of these hardy perennials, I do some weeding of the garden beds as well. Attending to the removal of weeds before winter sets in can save a lot of weeding in the spring.
For the lawns, I find it is important to rake up as many of the fallen tree leaves as possible. Not only does the raking of the fallen leaves keeps the property looking neat and tidy, it helps prevent Snow Mold from developing over the winter months.
This fall, the winter garden and lawn preparation used up a total of forty-nine yard and garden waste bags.
Stay safe. Stay well. Stay connected. And, until next time, this is Michael Pollard for this old Church of ours.
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