Here’s how to prepare your SC garden or yard for spring and add color during the winter months

This is good or bad news depending on how you feel about working in your yard and garden.

There is more to do.

Jennifer Weaver, an urban horticulture agent and master gardener coordinator for Lexington and Aiken counties for Clemson Extension, has quite a long list of chores to not only ready your Midlands gardens for spring but also to add color during the cold, gray winter months.

Let’s start with chores.

Weaver says in a recent email from the Home & Garden Information Center that if you’re not planting in certain areas, you need to protect the soil. She suggests cover crops such as buckwheat or cereal oats. They suppress weeds and prevent erosion, and their roots break up the soil.

Mulch is also a good choice as is an inch or two of compost.

Then there’s the age-old controversial topic — do you rake up all of the leaves? Weaver says not in the garden. If the leaves decompose slowly, the soil will stay moist and loose for planting in the spring.

She also said November is the time to think about cleanup, Fruit, branches, weeds and leaves around trees should be removed. This helps keep out insects and disease when you get back to spring planting.

Now the fun stuff. Make your yard pretty.

Weaver suggests planting sasanqua, witch hazel, fragrant tea olive for flowers and holly and pyracantha for red berries.

Perennials that bloom this month are hardy heirloom mums, ironweed, black-eyed Susan, goldenrod, swamp sunflower, salvias, Joe-pye weed, and autumn crocus bulbs, Weaver said.

For annuals, plant pansies, violas, stock and snapdragon.

“Deadhead plants to keep them blooming instead of expending energy to produce seed,” she said.

If you like maroon and cabbage, consider ornamental cabbage and kale. They “provide dramatic color and texture,” she said.

Weaver said planting trees and shrubs in fall reduces transplant shock — warm soil and cool air help roots grow and become established.

“A healthy plant has enough stored energy in its woody twigs and branches to support fall root growth even though leaves are absent,” she said.

She suggests using a soaker hose to keep the root ball from being saturated.

Bulbs can be planted in November and they will bloom before perennials and annuals.