tucking in the garden for winter

This is our fourth fall in this house, and I think we have finally figured out how to best deal with the leaves from the six large maple trees on our property.  The first fall, we had just moved in and were completely overwhelmed by them.  Our amazing neighbors jumped in and used their two riding mowers to help us out.  Since then, Jeff (primarily) and I have been trying to figure out a system to stay on top of the leaves while also making the most of their benefit to the garden.

The first couple of years, we treated them as refuse and took them to the grass and leaf pile at the dump.  As I’ve been reading more about gardening, though, I learned we were throwing away a valuable resource, especially if the leaves are shredded.  Jeff’s dad gave us an old Chipper Vac, so they are even more useful.  We learned that firsthand when the piles we dumped behind an overgrown hedge turned into rich, dark soil over the winter months.  I shoveled as much as I could and spread it under bushes and over bare spots in the yard we were seeding.  So, this year, we selected a few places to spread the shredded leaves so it’s made the job much easier.  Instead of having to empty shredded leaves into lawn and leaf bags and make regular trips to the dump, Jeff has just been dumping them under hedges and in garden beds, and as I’ve been cleaning up the beds for winter, I’ve been spreading the piles with a rake.

This photo was taken a few days ago, and now the trees are almost entirely bare.  We should be nearing the end of the leaf mulching!

The big project I wanted to tackle was cutting back the sweet autumn clematis.  I know it can be beneficial for birds and other little creatures to leave the dead vines in place, but there were two years of growth over the fence, an obelisk I built, and a trellis.  Vines were also climbing over the climbing hydrangea along my neighbor’s fence and up an arborvitae hedge.  I spoke with that neighbor last season, and we decided we wanted to protect the climbing hydrangea that divides our property and work together to keep more aggressive vines from smothering it.  I’ve done my best to keep the sweet Autumn clematis off of it, but it was winning the battle towards the end of the summer.  I decided I would pull all but one plant by the fence.  Right now, there are four or five in that corner.  One plant will still grow and cover our fence, which is what I want, but it won’t be as difficult to control.  I’ll also keep the plant on the trellis against the house since that one is isolated.

Despite the problems it was causing, it looked glorious in late August and early September!

It doesn’t look great in the winter, though.  It turns brown and brittle and, when it starts growing again in the spring, the old vines add little but bulk and weight.  Sweet Autumn Clematis can be trimmed down to just about a foot off the ground, and it will come back beautifully, so that’s what I did.  It was a ton of work to trim, untangle, and bag it all, but it was worth it for a fresh start.  Now, I can access the corner of my neighbor’s yard and better control other pests that have been hiding under the clematis vines, such as bittersweet nightshade, English ivy, wild grapevine, and my old nemesis, bishop’s weed.

I have resolved to do this every fall so things look tidy over the winter.

We still have more to do as leaves keep falling, but we’re also trying to keep the patio clear of debris so we don’t have as much staining from dead leaves as we’ve had in previous years.  We closed the umbrellas and put them along with all the cushions under the lounge chair covers.  Of course, the pool was also closed and covered after our contractor made a few tile repairs.

I’ve also trimmed back some of the hydrangeas.  I’m leaving some as is and trimming others to see which ones fare better.  Some of them looked pretty sad towards the end of the summer, so I’m going to try some troubleshooting experiments over the next year.  I think I was perhaps under-fertilizing them.  The limelights did pretty well overall, but a couple of them looked stressed and maybe even diseased.

Here is the patio in August before we installed the shutters on the window, but you can see that these limelights look very happy.

Since most of our big landscaping projects are done, I can turn my attention to more of the fun stuff like planting, propagating, and trying to make everything look beautiful and healthy.  Most of our bushes and plants will be in their third season (some will be in their second), so we should start to see some good growth.

Even with the limited evening light, I’ve tried to spend some time outside in the garden, cleaning things up, tucking plants in for the winter, and making some plans for next spring.  I don’t miss daily watering and weeding duties, but I do miss putting on my overalls and spending some time with my hands in the dirt most evenings after dinner, even if it was just pulling ivy (you can read about that fun job HERE)…

PS – I did press more cuttings from my garden for my gardening notebook this year!