1. TIME TO MULTIPLY YOUR PLANTS!
While weeding (before mulching your beds for winter) look for volunteer seedlings of plants you might want and leave in place or lift and pop into a nursery bed. (Some may need sheltering.)
It may not be too late to collect seed from overgrown veggies and later flowering plants. Dry the seed before storing in a cool, dry place. Old Altoids tins or paper envelopes work well – just don’t seal in plastic. Label carefully!! Share seed with fellow gardeners – you almost never need as much as you have.
Learn about propagation and start taking cuttings from your favorite and rare plants. By late summer next year, you could have well-started plants to give as gifts or add to your own garden. Here’s a great, well-reviewed book to start with:
American Horticultural Society Plant Propagation: The Definitive Practical Guide to Culmination, Propagation, and Display
2. TIME TO CUT BACK, COMPOST AND TIDY UP (BUT NOT TOO MUCH!)
Leave seed heads in place as long as possible for the birds and other wildlife who use them and for the beauty of their forms in the winter landscape.
Cut off dead stalks of euphorbia. Fresh blooms will form for spring.
Leave flowering plants with green leaves to photosynthesize until they turn brown – they’ll come back stronger in spring.
Remove and get rid of any diseased foliage – keeping it out of the home compost bin. (Yard waste bin is okay.)
DO NOT cut back hardy fuchsia, kniphofia or hardy cyclamen. Wait until early spring to cut back epimedium (when you see flowers forming underneath) and ornamental grasses (when new growth is beginning.)
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