Winterize by sharpening tools, mounding roses

Sharpen and clean your garden tools before putting them away for the season. Sharpen spades with an electric hand grinder and put the bevel on the inside edge of the spades. It is important to wear ear and eye protection for this task as it is noisy, and sparks will fly as the grinder works. Move the grinder steadily back and forth to create a sharp edge and avoid burning the metal. Well-maintained tools make gardening much easier.

Use pegboard on your garage walls or in a basement to hang and organize tools. If you have a garage and it is unheated, it is best to store liquids in a cool space like a basement. Have your snowblower serviced before the first measurable snowfall when repair shops may get backed up with repair and maintenance work.

• Winterize your hybrid roses after there have been two to three hard freezes (temperatures in the teens), which typically occur in late November at the Chicago Botanic Garden. Cut back the rose canes to about 18 inches and mound the roses with 12 to 15 inches of compost or mulch for the winter. Garden staff generally covers roses the week after Thanksgiving. Do not use grass clippings that can mat down and hold moisture around the plants. It is best to clean up and remove any rose leaves that have fallen if you have had problems with black spot, which is a common fungal disease. This disease will overwinter on infected foliage. Landscape roses such as Knock Out and drift roses do not require mounding for the winter.

• Evergreens will lose some needles in the fall. If the drop is not excessive, and the overall color of the remaining foliage is a normal shade of green, you should not have to worry. Generally, the needles fall from the center portion of the tree. Baldcypress, which looks like it should be an evergreen, is a deciduous conifer and is supposed to lose its leaves in fall.

• Tim Johnson is director of horticulture at Chicago Botanic Garden, chicagobotanic.org.