Beautiful fall colours are on display around Steinbach, and a local gardener is offering tips to get your garden ready for next year. Dorinda Penner from Sunshine Nursery and Greenhouse says autumn is the perfect time to prepare for the next growing season. “It is a wonderful time to embrace how we can add more colour to our yard and of course, clean up our yard. Any pruning that needs to be done on our shrubs or cleaning up,” she says. “You can trim back your perennials, clean them up, and then you're ready to go in spring.” She recommends raking leaves. “We have various trees that have dropped all their leaves, some that are just in the process of dropping. And it can be a succession. Some leaves, if they're dried up, you can work them into a compost pile if you've got, turn it a couple of times and it becomes fresh organic matter for next year.” Penner notes that leaf mulch can also be placed around the base of perennials for protection. “Or you can work with Steinbach’s program to get it to the landfill or some of their drop sites and they will turn it into compost as well. So don't just throw it into the garbage by any means. Try to reuse because it is a renewable resource for your yards.” Many gardeners also prepare flower beds for winter. “Which is trimming them down. If you have any shrubs, they can be trimmed down,” she says. “Any roses, if you've got rose hips on them, you almost want to leave the rose hip because that rose hip is signaling that rose saying, I'm shutting down and going dormant for winter.” She says that the same applies to vegetable gardens. “So, any of your tomato plants, if there's any blossoms on your tomato plants now, remove the blossoms because that's never going to produce a tomato this year yet. So, remove all, cut all blossoms off your tomato plants now and let any energy go into maturing the fruit that's on there. So that's ways we can prepare in fall.” Penner adds that fall is the best time to shop for next year’s plants. “Unfortunately, in the spring gardening season, when you go to the garden centre, you're not seeing the reds and the oranges and the crisp yellows that various perennials or shrubs or trees are giving you.” It’s also the ideal season to plant new perennials and bulbs. “So now is the time to embrace tulips and daffodils and our Manitoba wildflower crocuses. These are hybrid species, so they give you bigger flower, more colour. And bulbs are so easy to plant. They are once and done. Dig a hole, pop it in about four inches deep and you're finished and it naturalizes underground, and you don't have to dig it up and replant it.” Garlic should be planted now as well. “You can pop them in the ground now and you're going to have amazing garlic for pickles or stir fries or pasta dishes next summer. It just makes me hungry when I think of all the things I can use garlic for, right? And they're just so easy to plant,” she says. With files from Laura Kathleen Turner