We Asked 3 Landscape Designers How They Prep Their Gardens in Late December – Here’s What They Always Do For a Stress-Free Yard in 2026
You can get ahead now too for a beautiful spring yard
When the garden goes quiet in December, the pros get busy. For experienced designers and landscapers, winter is far from downtime. It is a purposefully strategic pivot point. This time of year helps both professionals and the home gardener with a smooth the entry into next spring and give themselves a boost toward another successful season of growth.
Whether it’s structural pruning and drainage fixes or critter protection and strategic design planning, professionals use December to set up a thriving garden for the year ahead. Harsh winter weather gives them time for learning, assessing and planning indoors. A fair-weather day allows for seeing the gardens and landscape in its bare-bones glory, a great time to trim, remove and clean.
We spoke with three landscape experts about what they do during December and beyond to prepare for a glorious new growing season next year. Take their advice and apply what you can to your own landscape. Getting ready now may even put you that much closer to all those backyard ideas you’ll dream up while you’re on your winter gardening sabbatical.
Winter is Setup Time
For Tim Johnson, President of Tim John Landscaping in Statesville, North Carolina, December is all about getting ahead.
As he puts it, ‘We take the winter time to set up for spring success, getting the leaf clean-up done, getting the mulching done, making sure the beds are clean ahead of time and making sure the edges are clean,’ Tim says.
He adds that doing these tasks in December and even January if the weather allows helps theme be prepared for the next season.
‘When the spring rush gets here, we won’t be behind the eight ball.' He also uses winter to make thoughtful decisions about leaf management. In manicured shrub borders, for example, he and his team will remove all the leaves out of the under the shrubs and ground cover.
But in other garden beds, it’s the opposite. ‘When we're talking about more perennial-type natural garden areas, then we're loading those leaves up in there to provide insulation where maybe we can’t place mulch.’
Winter Plant Care
Winter is also when Johnson applies protective treatments. ‘We don't believe in having a lot of fertilization in the shrub beds during the winter when we're getting frosts and freezes,’ he says.
His team will apply some horticultural oils and a bio-stimulant to make sure that the plants are happy and healthy. ‘Because growth is a year-round thing, it doesn't take off in the wintertime,’ Johnson says.
He explains that horticultural oil has a dual purpose in the landscape. It’s often used for controlling insects, and in the winter it has another purpose: ‘It's mainly for that moisture management in the leaves and the protection there in the leaves.’ Amazon carries the all seasons horticultural & dormant spray oil from Bonide.
December is also prime time for structural pruning. Johnson calls it ‘a critically important time to structurally prune ornamental trees,’ he says. It helps to get a little bit more air through the canopy and cuts out crossing branches.
‘It’s a great time when you can actually see in through the trees and shrubs as they are totally dormant.’
Prime Design Time
Landscape designer Dave Marciniak of Revolutionary Gardens in Culpeper, Virginia, uses December to encourage clients to think about garden and landscape planning before the spring chaos hits.
‘This is a great time of year for working with a landscape designer on a design so they can hit the ground running in the springtime before everybody gets booked up.’
Dormancy also makes December an ideal month to move woody plants. ‘If there are deciduous trees or shrubs that homeowners want to move, this is a good time of year for it, when they're in dormancy,’ Marciniak says.
However, there’s some items he doesn’t suggest moving at this time; ‘I would not do broadleaf evergreens after about Halloween,’ he says, ‘as they desiccate then die over winter, no matter what you do.’
Garden drainage issues, too, are easier to diagnose in winter. ‘This time of year, you can see clearly where your water is sitting,’ Marciniak says. The bare-bones landscape helps him adapt the drainage to move the water where you need to. ‘It’s the perfect time to identify those problem areas.’
Winter’s leafless landscape makes it the best time to add lighting, Marciniak adds. ‘There's a whole lot less foliage,’ he says, ‘and as we’re running wires and setting fixtures and such, it's a whole lot easier when everything's not fully leafed out.’ You can find lighting fixtures that make your landscape shine at Amazon.
Protecting and Planning
In Wisconsin, gardener and creator Erin Schanen (aka The Impatient Gardener) approaches winter prep differently; less fall cleanup, more protection, and a lot of design pondering and plotting.
Schanen has reduced her fall clean-up to almost nothing: ‘I do less and less of that every year,’ she admits. Not only does it leave seedheads and stems standing through winter for wildlife, but also, she adds, ‘It gives me something to look at in winter.’ And surprisingly, it makes spring cleanup that much easier: ‘You can basically break off most of the stems, and it’s all much lighter material.’
Protection from winter-hungry animals such as rabbits and deer is one of her top priorities in December. ‘Winter protection up here in Wisconsin is a really big thing, with protection from critters being the bigger factor,’ Schanen says. That means caging young trees and applying repellents. You can find deer and rabbit repellent at Walmart.
Cold protection is the next necessary protection. Schanen does this by piling leaves over tender shrubs: ‘I build a cage around the plant and then stuff it full of leaves,’ she explains. Also, any plant that is borderline for her USDA Zone gets extra insulation.
Even in freezing climates, winter watering matters. 'On those days when it’s nice enough, I will get some watering cans out and water the newer and particularly water-sensitive evergreens, because they don’t want to dehydrate.’ She also waters shrubs overwintering in her garage ‘about once a month, just so that they don’t fully dry out.’
When the hands-on tasks are done, she shifts her attention to analysis and design. ‘There’s no better time to analyze the structure in a garden than winter,” Schanen says. ‘The break does allow us time and space to be a little bit more critical about what our own gardens look like.’
And that’s how January has become one of her most creative seasons: 'I’m often redesigning things, coming up with the plant palette; it’s a joy because it keeps my fingers in gardening.’ The other perk is that because she has spent the time designing, ‘I can get those plant orders in early, and I can go straight into the season, ready to roll.”
Schanen uses winter as a time to refill her creative well by visiting other gardens, especially in warmer climates. With her own garden dormant under snow, she travels to places like Florida and the Naples Botanical Garden to observe bold plant combinations, textures and design ideas she can reinterpret at home. These off-season visits help her ‘refill [her] inspiration cup and think about the bigger design picture rather than specific plants.
FAQs
Is December a good time to evaluate a garden?
Yes. Homeowners can use bare-bones views to identify gaps in the landscape, assess sight lines, check plant spacing, and note areas that need structural elements like evergreens or large containers.
Can I plant trees and shrubs in December?
Many pros continue installations well into December, especially woody plants, if the ground is not frozen. Trees and shrubs planted while dormant often establish better root systems, and landscapers appreciate the lighter schedules and cooler working conditions.
December is a powerful month of preparation – and not just for the professionals. It’s less about maintenance and more about positioning the garden for an easy rollout for a beautiful, low-stress spring.
Winter work pays dividends all year long. And your particular payoff may include a trip to a warmer climate – perhaps Rio De Janeiro garden tour? – for some much-needed garden inspiration.
Meet the experts
Tim Johnson II, president of Tim Johnson Landscaping in Statesville, North Carolina, began his entrepreneurial path at age 12 and officially launched his business while mowing lawns as a teen. After earning a degree in Environmental Horticulture and a certificate in Entrepreneurship from NC A&T, he returned from a brief baseball career to help his father grow TJL into a thriving, full-service company. Tim’s workdays are busy and varied, but his favorite part of the job is the people he interacts with, team members, clients, and partners. He holds multiple professional licenses and became president of the North Carolina Nursery and Landscape Association in 2023. Outside of work, Tim is active in his church and community, earning several local honors for service.
David Marciniak is a landscape designer based in Culpeper, Virginia. He owns Revolutionary Gardens, a firm dedicated to creating one-of-a-kind landscapes for folks who love being outside. Dave has designed landscapes all over the country, from New England to California, before settling in Virginia.
Erin Schanen started the Impatient Gardener blog in 2009 and discovered a love for communicating with fellow gardeners that grew into a popular gardening YouTube channel and weekly newspaper column. Her southeastern Wisconsin garden serves as her lab for experiments in both design and growing, which achieve varying degrees of success. When she's not in her garden, the former editor of SAILING Magazine can be found racing sailboats on Lake Michigan or enjoying time with her husband Rich and two Newfoundland dogs.
