Fall has arrived and winter will be nipping at out heels shortly. For gardeners, that means that it is time to start winterizing your gardens and landscape beds. There are a lot of things to do, but luckily most of your winterizing tasks are pretty simple. Here are a few of the most important things to remember as you get your garden ready for winter.

Landscape Garden Clean Up

The first important consideration in preparing your garden for winter is cleaning up everything that won’t be needed during the winter. This means cutting back plants, pruning bushes, weeding, etc. Make sure you trim back any plants that have gone to seed before they start dropping seeds on the ground. Also clean up any trash, debris or stray plants at this time. The goal is to leave your garden as bare as possible to make things easier in the spring.

Split Bulbs and Replant

Fall is also the best time to divide bulbs before winter. You will know it is time to split your favorite bulbs if they didn’t have a strong floral showing last spring. Dig up and split any desired bulbs and replant. For your more delicate bulbs that won’t be able to weather the winter, dig them up now and store properly for spring.

Prepare Soil

The fall is also the perfect to prepare and nourish your soil for next year. Once you have prepared the garden by cleaning and taking care of fall planting, cover everything with a nice layer or compost or mulch. By preparing your soil now, you will be ready for spring planting.

Protect if Necessary

If you grow the same plants year after year, you should have a pretty good idea of what does well in the winter and what does not. Consider taking a few precautions to protect or shelter some of your less resilient plants. Taking a little time to protect your plants in the fall can result in a better looking garden and less winter fatalities come spring.

The gardening season is quickly coming to an end. Take the time now to leave everything tidy so that you can jump in and start gardening as soon as the winter snow melts next spring.

Bulbs multiply quickly. By starting off with just a few daffodil bulbs one year, you may find yourself completely overrun just a few years later. Most bulbs split at least once or twice each year, meaning that you can quickly increase your stock of bulbs. A great way to get rid of excess bulbs and acquire a few new ones for your garden is to start a bulb trading group. Since bulbs are typically divided in the fall, it is the perfect time to get trading.

If you would like to start a bulb trading group, you simply need to know a few gardeners. You probably already have several friends that would love to participate with you. Talk with friends and see who is interested. Remember, the more people you get, the more variety you will have. Tell your friends to ask around as well.

Once you have several interested traders, set a date. Try to choose an easy to attend time that will work well for most schedules. Print up a few fliers and pass them around. You may also want to consider taking out some classified ads or printing an event notice in the local newspaper. Many newspapers will run community events in their column at no charge and this can be a great way to get the word out. You can also post information for your swap on any gardening forums that you regularly frequent.

On the day of the event, a little organization will make things run a lot more smoothly. There are two approaches that your trade can take. You can either allow swaps to occur between two people directly (one daffodil bulb for one tulip) or you can create a group trade which will allow several people to trade amongst themselves. To do a group trade, simply assign numbers to each person bringing an item to trade. Once numbers have been assigned, place available bulbs on a table and randomly select people to choose one of the offerings. Whatever plan you choose, make sure that everyone involved understands what is going to happen to avoid frustration and anger.

A bulb trade is a great opportunity to mingle with other bulb lovers and to get a few new plants to grow in your yard. Since you probably have more bulbs than you can use, you might as well take this fun opportunity to share.