If you live in the Rockies, this is not the ideal time for gardening. But if you have a terraced garden you can use this time to help fix up your terraces and make sure that any stairs you have in your garden are not deteriorating too much. As long as the ground is not covered in snow, you can get in and make a few repairs.
1) Find the cracks – This is an ideal time to assess the damage to your steps and terraces. As the ground will be frozen or at least more compact, you can get a good visual on areas that need repairing. And as temperatures continue to drop you are at less risk for continued deterioration due to rain run-off. If you have a mountain garden, this is a great time to go out and have a walk. Take your camera and document it, this way you can compare to previous years.
2) Pull plants that are causing damage – Do you see some plants growing outside of the terrace, or pushing their roots out over the ledge? Now is the time to pull them if you don’t have plans to replant them. If you want to replant you can wait until the spring, but by then it may be too late to make extreme changes in your terrace. If they aren’t too important, pull them now; you can always replant them in a pot until spring if you don’t want to discard them.
3) Patch up your walls – If your holding walls are starting to look a little bit wobbly, now is the time to add a bit of support. If you can push them back into position, great. Do that and then you can pack the soil again. If you cannot push the wall back into position, measure the angle of difference. You can also try to pull out the wall and realign it by refilling the space with new soil. If the walls look severely damaged, consider calling a landscape architect to help redesign the space.
4) Fill the cracks – If you can see a few cracks in the walls, but otherwise they remain stable, consider filling them with putty or insulating them so that they do not continue to spread. You can pick up the filler at any Home Depot or hardware store.
5) Redistribute the soil – The good thing about the winter snowfall is that it does not cause the same amount of run-off as the spring and fall rains. Take this opportunity to get out with a rake or a shovel and even out your soil. This will help take the pressure off of your walls and extend the life of your terraced garden.
