As summer nears its end, preparing your garden for fall is a must. Depending on where you live, the temperatures will change with the seasons. For many pro gardeners, pruning and removing tired, dying plants is the one thing they make sure to do.

So, why is pruning the main task garden pros make sure they do before fall? We spoke to three gardening experts to find out the reason and other tips for managing the seasonal transition.

Why Gardeners Always Prune Before Fall?

The experts agreed that the end of summer is a great time to remove tired, dead, or dying plants, especially annuals, from the garden. It’s for aesthetic reasons, but also to clear the way for new plants.

“It’s common for gardens to look like jungles in August,” Jen McDonald, a Certified Organic Vegetable Garden Specialist and co-owner of Garden Girls, says. “Depending on your growing zone, you could be in prime tomato growing season or completely finished with it [in] Zones 9 and 10.”

McDonald says you can identify the plants that have stopped growing by their dark brown leaves and their brown and crispy stalks. She also notes they will be overwhelmed with pests.

“Rather than trying to revive a plant that is naturally finishing up, I recommend just pulling it out of the garden completely and using that space for a new seasonally appropriate veggie or herb,” she says.

Other Things Your Things Garden Needs Before Fall

Gardening pros also highly recommend adding more fertilizer for your garden as autumn arrives, especially if your garden had summer veggies, like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. Those vegetables are considered heavy feeders that deplete the soil of nutrients.

“It’s really important to reintroduce nitrogen into the soil,” Lara Hermanson, the co-owner and principal at Farmscape, says. “Any beefy green vegetables, [like] lettuce, kale, and collards, those all need nitrogen, and it’s not going to occur naturally without us adding it back in.”

She suggests either adding it to the soil or planting a cover crop—such as radishes, carrots, beets or turnips—to help replenish the soil’s nutrients over time.

If you prefer to add fertilizer, McDonald recommends using compost or Microlife pellets.

“They not only help improve the soil health, but also the entire microbiome underneath the soil’s surface,” she says. “Another added benefit is that you really can’t over-apply. It’s safe and easy to use.”

Amy McCord, the founder and CEO of Flower Moxie, also suggests adding organic matter, like manure and peet moss “to set up your beds for success and reset the stag for the next big growing season.”

4 Other Tips for Preparing Your Garden for Fall

McCord had these other tips for getting your garden to be fall-ready.

• Add mulch. Applying this to the soil will help lock in moisture for your plants and provide insulation. “[It’s] very visually pleasing by making your beds look clean and manicured without the lush plants you would see in the warmer growing seasons,” she says.

• Water deeply before the first frost. Dehydration will stress out plants as the temperatures get lower and start to get near freezing, so make sure to give them the water they need.

• Harvest seeds. This will help you keep varieties you enjoy and set you up to plant them for the next growing season.

• Plant your fall and winter crops. Just because summer is over doesn’t mean your garden’s prime is over. Veggies like kale and spinach can thrive in the fall.

We Asked Pro Gardeners What They Always Do Before Fall – and It’s Surprisingly Simple by Mallory Carra | The Spruce