By Beth Day Waters

WSU Master Gardener

Do you hear the call to get into a relationship with the land and the seasons? If we can brave the winter chill and caked mud on our garden shoes, there’s work we can accomplish now that honors our home landscapes during this underappreciated yet glorious time of year.

Contrary to Pacific Northwest lore, we do have dry days interspersed with all the wet ones. So let’s don our earmuffs, hand-warmers and long underwear, and head outdoors to experience our gardens in late winter.

Here’s a short list of the season’s garden tasks:

1. WEEDING WOES

Are you wedded to your weeds? Try this weeding alternative: Cover them with layers of cardboard or newspaper and top with mulch. This method blocks light, holds moisture, and doesn’t disturb the earth and the weeds-in-waiting buried under the surface. I’m fond of saying, “I dig all things dirt,” but maybe I shouldn’t. It’s simple math: Soil disturbance equals the awakening of sleeping weed seeds, creating an exhausting, four-seasons activity for you and me.

2. SEED SOWING

This is a good time to sow the seeds of native wildflowers that support indigenous bees, birds, butterflies and other beneficial insects. Seeds native to the Pacific Northwest draw native insects more readily. Those treated with pesticides have been implicated in the decline of pollinators.

3. CLUTTER CLEARANCE

Though nature’s debris is healthy for the soil, remove fallen deciduous leaves and conifer needles from plants. Let them drop to the ground and cover with a layer of mulch. This admittedly tedious task makes garden beds look cleaner and fresher during any season.

4. FOLIAGE FRESHENING

Brilliant! You didn’t fall for the temptation to put your garden to bed for the winter, and instead left the foliage and seed heads on your grasses and perennials. Your patience has been rewarded with greater winter beauty and food for hungry birds. Now it’s time to cut back bedraggled foliage, long stems and seed heads, just before spring ushers in new growth.

5. PICTURESQUE PRUNING

This is a good time to prune dormant trees and bushes, with exceptions: Avoid using your loppers just before a severe cold snap, or on stems that flower or fruit on old wood. Remove broken branches, and those that cross and rub each other. Remove any upturned branches vying to become the leader. Clip some small twigs to allow air to flow through. Coppice (remove at or near ground level) older branches from shrub dogwoods for more intense color next winter. Allow your plants to breathe for a vigorous defense against fungal diseases in our wet climate.

Note: There are gardeners among us who prune timidly, accomplishing little. There are those of us who mistake downright aggression for an assertive touch, creating subsequent unsightly water sprouts like those atop the Whomping Willow at Hogwarts. Check out pruning books by Lee Reich and Cass Turnbull to understand the nuances of this important art form.

6. TOOL TO-DOs

Did you clean, sharpen and oil your tools in late fall? Me neither. My justification: I garden obsessively all winter. It’s not too late, though, and well-maintained tools will make our year’s garden efforts exponentially more efficient.

7. LANDSCAPE LAYOUT

If you’re a vegetable gardener, you’ve already begun poring through seed catalogs. This is a good time to plan the layout for next summer’s beds — unless the artist-designed seed packets from Hudson Valley Seeds have caught your eye. Once you’re hooked on the artwork, you may not get around to that garden plan, much less plant any seeds.

8. OUTDOOR OBSERVATION

Take note of the structure of your garden without the deciduous canopy to disguise it. There’s valuable information to be gained this time of year about the bones of the landscape.

9. AL FRESCO ABLUTIONS

Breathe the chilled air and scented winter blooms, and listen to the birds sing. Get dirt under your nails, wash away the last vestiges of cabin fever, and perform your own five-senses salute to the great outdoors.

Let’s find inner warmth in the cold season, and glory in the breathtaking beauty of our Pacific Northwest in late winter.

Now, I can dig that.

Beth Day Waters is the former art instructor at Aberdeen High School. She has been a Master Gardener since 2010. She gardens on the West Satsop.

The dried stalks and flower heads of Autumn Joy sedum have held up well through the winter months and now are ready to be cut back to the base of new rosettes.

“Take long walks in stormy weather” — Henry David Thoreau. While you’re at it, take note of your garden’s underlying structure during the quiet season.