• To clean garden tools, put warm water and a tablespoon of dishwasher detergent into a bucket. The detergent helps detach soil clumps from metal blades. When clean and dry, use a broad file to sharpen shovels and hoes for next season.
• Taking care of your garden hose this fall will save you from having to buy a new one next spring. Plastic hoses will crack if they are allowed to freeze with water in them. Drain the hose completely and coil it for more convenient storage off the ground. Drain all water from hoses. Store them kink-free in a dry place on a hose reel or loosely coiled rather than hanging on a hook or nail.
• Remove soil from hand tools. Sharpen spades, hoes, pruners, loppers and pruning saws. Tighten loose screws or nuts; lubricate moving parts and springs. Repair any broken handles.
• Clean and oil your garden tools for winter storage. Place some sand and some oil in a large bucket, then slide your garden tools in and out of the sand. This will do an excellent job of cleaning them, as well as applying a light coat of oil to prevent rusting.
• Treat your lawn mower right this winter, and it will treat you right next spring. Run the gas out of the tank, remove the spark plug, and squirt a tablespoon of oil into the cylinder head. Give the engine a turn or two to coat the cylinder walls with oil, then replace the plug. Disconnect the spark plug wire, and clean any accumulated grass from under the mower. Then store it in a dry place until spring. Consider having the blades sharpened now so you won't have to put off mowing in the spring because the blades are in the shop being sharpened.
• Clean up your garden cart or wheelbarrow and wash spreader out. Grease wheels to prevent squeaking.
• Power equipment-lawn mowers, tillers and chippers-should be cleaned of grease, dirt and plant material. Tighten loose nuts, screws and sharpen cutting edges.
• Two-cycle engines that run with a gas and oil mixture should have the oil-gas mixture removed. To do this, run the engine with the choke open until fuel runs out.
• Don't store gasoline for your mower-it deteriorates quickly. Never use old gasoline in your equipment.

Vegetable Garden

• Plant pathogens and insects can over-winter in the vegetable garden on infected plant debris, so do a thorough clean-up and tilling of the soil in areas where you've had issues.
• Don't forget to give soil a boost by working in more compost and manure.
• If your coldframe is not in use at this time, it may be appropriate to add soil to replace that taken away by transplants. A mixture of two parts garden loam, one part sand, and one part compost or aged manure works well.
• Cut back raspberry canes that have grown too long, to prevent damage caused by winter winds.

Annual & Perennial Beds

• After frost has killed the annuals, pull them out and compost; dispose of diseased plant material in the garbage.
• To clean up your beds, start cutting plants back after leaves die back. To avoid future problems, remove and dispose of any diseased leaves in the garbage. The foliage of some perennials-delphiniums, monarda (bee balm), summer phlox and peony- should cut to ground level and removed to prevent disease problems.
• Do one last weeding and discard any weeds that have seeds on them in the garbage instead of the compost.
• Once the ground freezes hard, apply a 5-cm layer of winter mulch. This keeps soil temperatures more even so perennials are less prone to frost heaving from freeze/thaw cycles. Use mature compost, weed-free straw or fallen leaves and spread around, not on top of your perennials. (If you shred them first, leaves will break down easily next spring, adding more organic matter to soil.)

Roses

• Remove fallen rose leaves from around each plant to help prevent recurrence of common problems such as black spot.
• Don't cut roses back now-do it early spring. The exception is rose bushes taller than 2 metres-these may be cut to a more manageable height of a metre.
• Once the ground starts to freeze, hill or mound soil up to 15 to 20 cm around base of each plant. A rose collar, available in most garden centres, can be used to help keep soil in place. Don't use soil from around plants for hilling-bring in additional soil.

Containers

• Empty all frost sensitive containers of plant material and potting mix-both can go into the compost.
• Clean terra cotta and other frost sensitive containers and store in a dry frost-free place.

Bulbs of all sorts

• Dig up after frost has blackened foliage, wash soil off; leave exposed to air for a couple of weeks.
• When dry, store in vermiculite or dry peat (available at garden centres) in paper bags or cardboard boxes; over-winter in a cool, frost free place.

Lawn Care

• Keep raking leaves weekly. It's tempting to let leaves lie around until they've all fallen, but this can smother grass.
• Cut lawn one last time in late October or early November-long grass encourages low temperature fungi-a cut to 3-4 cm is ideal.
• Give your lawn one last fertilizing around Halloween in warmer parts of the country, a week or two earlier in colder regions. The latest turf grass research recommends only one or two applications of a slow-release, high nitrogen lawn fertilizer a year. The key application is in late fall when grass is still photosynthesizing but not growing actively; this encourages sugars to be stored in the roots and crown, increasing winter hardiness and promoting quick spring greening.

Woody Plants and Evergreens

• If the fall has been dry, before the ground freezes hard, water all evergreens thoroughly over several weeks to help them store moisture to cope with the drying effects of harsh winter conditions.
• Add a 7-10 cm layer of wood chip mulch around the base of shrubs to protect roots and help retain moisture.
• To protect plants such as rhododendrons from exposure to winter sun and wind, hammer stakes or bamboo poles into ground around shrub and surround with burlap. If you prefer to leave foliage exposed, spray it with an anti-desiccant product that leaves a protective waxy film.
• I don't like to wrap evergreens in burlap. After all the point is to have some green to look at in the winter. If you wrap evergreens to protect them from salt thrown up by snow removal equipment on the road, your evergreens are poorly sited. You're better off to plant them in spots where you won't have this problem.
• Protect upright evergreens such as juniper and cedars from ice and snow damage by wrapping branches with heavy string or netting.
• Wrap bark of young trees with plastic tree guards or shelters to prevent damage from rodents and rabbits that feed on tender bark. I put these on for the winter and remove them in spring, as they are unsightly.