Anchorage Daily News

OK, it's scramble time. Lots of little things should be done before winter hits the yard.

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First, take care of your outdoor faucets. They probably have a freeze-proofing system built in, but if not you need to turn them off from the inside of your house. Either way, disconnect not only the hoses but all the other attachments, such as timers and quick-releases. Take care not to lose the washers from your appliances.

While you are at it, drain your hoses so, if they are stored outdoors or in an unheated shed, they won't expand and split during freeze-thaw cycles. Coil them and put them where you can access them early next spring.

Next, do you know where your tools are? Collect them and put them away. After cleaning shovels and other garden tools likely to rust, spray them with WD-40 or apply vegetable oil.

Clean up a bit in perennial gardens. Of prime consideration should be yellow foxglove, meadow rue, campanulas of all sorts, veronicas and other plants that will self-seed and generate more plants. This may be fine, but if you don't want them to spread, pull off and discard their seed heads now.

As for cleaning up dead leaves and stems, it is OK, but I urge you to leave everything right there in the garden. The plants spent all season developing this organic matter, and in the wild it would go back to its parent. So should it in your garden! Break up stems and branches and lay them over the roots that produced them. I leave everything, even peony leaves, which you are told to take out of the garden.

Stake and identify your plants. Then mulch them with leaves. One to 3 inches is fine. And speaking of peonies, mulch only if you know you will remember to take it off the plants' crowns as soon as you can in the spring. Otherwise, yours won't bloom.

Turn your wheelbarrows and garden carts upside down so they don't fill with water, ice and snow. Pay attention to any artwork or containers that hold water. They will crack if you don't take action now to prevent them from filling.

While I don't recommend raking leaves off the lawn, I do urge you to remove them from the driveway and walks, decks and flat roof areas. You are going to have to do it sometime, and now is the best time as they are lighter, not water-soaked and packed. Once they are up, your yard will look clean, and the decay I so rave about will not be taking place on your precious wood or tar.

Instead of raking and sweeping leaves, I used to use one of those loud, gas backpack blowers that took 30 minutes and a special dance move to get started. (It also left a blue cloud of pollution as it ran.)

Last year I got a Toro electric blower/vac and a heck of a long extension cord. Wow: Instant on and off, hurricane force, adjustable wind in a lightweight, perfectly balanced case that is relatively quiet too. I will never go back to gasoline. My life has been changed, as you can tell from the endorsement! Whether you use rake or blower, however, do clean wood decks, tar and shingle surfaces as well as walkways.

Now is the best time to clean up raspberry beds. Canes that produced fruit this year, as indicated by the empty fruit "caps," will need to be cut back to the ground. They are dead. This year's fruitless canes will not have caps, obviously, and will produce fruit next year. Mulch with leaves and a bit of grass clippings.

Get out your bird feeders, clean them and put them up. However, do not fill them yet as the bears are still roaming about. Stay tuned for the Rick Sinnott OK to put out seed.

Finally, of course, plant (more) spring bulbs.

Jeff Lowenfels is a member of the Garden Writers Hall of Fame. You can reach him at www.gardenerjeff.com or by joining the "Garden Party" radio show from 10 a.m. to noon Saturdays on KBYR 700 AM.

Garden calendar

• FORCING BULBS: Buy paperwhites, which do not need a period of cooling. Tulips, other daffodils, crocuses and all the other spring-flowering bulbs can be forced to bloom this winter.

• DRIVEWAYS: Stake walks and driveways to keep the snow people in line.

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