13 Ways To Prepare Your Garden for Fall

Fall weather signals a shift in gardening practices, and landscapes need attention to prepare for the season ahead. Gardeners should begin this work about six weeks before the first hard freeze, adjusting watering strategies to help plants transition into winter and reviewing what to prune in late fall before growth slows for the year. Read on for all the ways you can prepare your garden for colder weather, according to HGTV's gardening experts.

A flower garden can tell you a lot at the end of the growing season. You'll want to assess the results of all your spring and summer work, and prepare the garden for next spring. First, take a walk around your garden and look at how all the plants did over the summer. Track successes and failures of individual plants. Identify which plants have outgrown their space and need to be divided.

Fall is a good time to check plants for signs of disease and damage. Look for spotted or discolored leaves, powdery mildew, cankers on stems and insect activity before winter sets in.

Weeds and faded blooms rob garden beds of nutrients late in the season. Regular weeding and deadheading keep beds tidy heading into winter. Don't forget: Pruners should get disinfected between cuts to avoid spreading disease.

Replace summer annuals in window boxes and garden beds with cool-weather flowers such as pansies, mums and ornamental kale. You can save seeds from many annuals, like zinnias, to plant again next year, and should dig up any bulb plants that aren't hardy in their zone.

Don't put any diseased plants into your compost pile. The pathogens can survive the composting process and spread back into the garden when the compost gets reused.

Compost and peat moss restore nutrients that summer growth pulls from garden soil. Use a garden fork to work these amendments evenly into the ground and ready soil for spring planting.

Determine which bare areas could use soil amendment and new plants, then add mulch where necessary. You should also brush off any mulch that's settled on plant branches, since it can turn leaves and needles yellow.

Divide overgrown perennials in fall by digging out the clump and cutting it into sections with a spade, then replant the divided portions in bare areas of the garden. Bulbs that aren't hardy in your zone should come out of the ground, cure for a few days and be stored in a cardboard box with peat moss through winter.

Within the first six weeks is the ideal time to sow cool-season grasses such as fescue and perennial rye; it will give them the opportunity to germinate and develop a good root system before freezing temperatures arrive.

Fall is the right time to fertilize turfgrasses with a slow-release, all-natural fertilizer. Adequate nutrients let turfgrasses store carbohydrates through winter for a stronger lawn in spring. This window also suits a second application of selective, pre-emergent herbicide, following fall and winter lawn care guidelines, to catch weed seeds deposited over summer.

Container plants often get overlooked this time of year, yet they need their own fall routine. Plants that aren't winter hardy should move indoors or into a protected area before temperatures drop, and you can take cuttings of annuals to root and grow as houseplants through winter.

Fall migration brings a steady stream of birds through the garden, and feeders help support the ones that stick around for winter. A stocked feeder and a source of fresh water give migrating and overwintering birds the fuel they need, and in return, birds help keep the local insect population in check.