Winter conditions can be brutal on landscape plantings, even mild winters. Properly preparing landscape plants can help reduce potential problems. Take time this fall to help ensure your landscape plants are ready for what lies ahead.

For all types of trees, shrubs, and herbaceous perennials, it is important not to enter winter under drought stress. Most of Wisconsin had adequate rain in late summer, but some areas have been dry in recent weeks. Last year, many portions of the state, in particular southern Wisconsin, experienced a very dry winter, causing numerous plant problems. Check both evergreens and deciduous plantings and water as needed to ensure adequate soil moisture up until the ground freezes.

Winter mulching is another important practice to consider preparing landscapes for winter. In most cases, mulch layers over plantings are not to prevent the ground from freezing, but rather to avoid freezing and thawing cycles over the course of winter. Snow covering the ground from December through March achieves this, but we cannot depend on that. With extended warm weather into October this year, make sure to give landscape perennials, strawberries, and other plants adequate time to make sure they have gone dormant before applying winter mulch.

Usually Thanksgiving is proper timing, depending on where you are in the state and November weather conditions. Ideally soils would just have started to freeze. Straw and marsh hay leads the list of suitable winter mulch materials, along with evergreen boughs. Leaves tend to mat down and may smother plants when used as winter mulch. Foliage of most perennials can be left standing all winter if it does not collapse after freezing weather, except for any diseased plants. Foliage adds winter interest, potential wildlife value, and some winter protection of plant crowns.

Smaller landscape shrubs are prone to damage from deer, rabbits, and voles (field mice) feeding over winter. The best defense is barriers constructed of either poultry wire or hardware cloth. Cylinders of poultry wire encircling shrubs will keep away rabbits, and if high enough, also deer. Secure with a few stakes or wire hoops into the soil. Deer damage to taller shrubs, in addition to requiring higher fencing barriers, can also be reduced using repellents. Read and follow product label directions, including how often to reapply. Remember repellents reduce but do not prevent animal feeding damage.

Remove vegetation from the base of small tree trunks to make less appealing winter habitat for voles. Tender bark of lower trunks of small trees can be protected from gnawing with a cylinder of hardware cloth. Carefully push cylinders into the soil so voles cannot crawl underneath.