Welcome to our garden here in upstate New York, zone 6A! Today is all about water in the garden and how we take care of our water resources over winter. We're talking fountains, yard enforcers (our secret weapon against deer), hose systems, drip irrigation, and even our pondless waterfall. It's a lot, but don't worry—we're going to walk you through every step of the process.

Starting with the Fountains

The first step in getting our fountains ready for winter is getting the water out of them. We have two gorgeous fountains—the Katarina and the Borghazi—and they're both too big to move into the garage every winter. Plus, we don't have the room! So we've found that the most effective thing to do is cover them during the winter months.

Here's the thing: the cold itself isn't actually the problem. It's the freeze and thaw cycle of water that can damage your fountains. That's why we have to blow them out completely. Once we get the bulk of the water out (mostly on Eric, if we're being honest), we let them dry out a little bit more while we tackle other water projects.

Our Foolproof Deer Defense: Yard Enforcers

Can we just say that yard enforcers have been our foolproof method for keeping deer out of our garden for the last couple of years? These are motion and heat-activated sprinklers that literally scare the you-know-what out of deer and keep them away from our precious hydrangeas.

We've had two in the past, but this year we had a water hookup added to the berm, which totally changed the water game in our garden. We ran a hose up along the back of the berm behind our Green Giant Arborvitae and added an additional yard enforcer, which really protected the back half of the garden. That meant no more coming out here to spray Bobbex all season long!

The downside? We can't have these out during winter because they'll freeze. They require live water, and that's just not going to work when temperatures drop. So here's what we do:

First, we detach them from the hose lines. These have batteries in them, and we've discovered they last exactly one season. So we take the batteries out, store the units in the garage, and in spring, we pop fresh batteries in and they're good to go.

Our New Experiment: Temporary Deer Fence

You might notice we have a new friend in the garden—a temporary deer fence! We're giving it a try. There'll probably still be some spray application just in case, but we're hoping this keeps the deer out of the backyard over winter.

We've heard mixed reviews about these fences, but we figured we might as well try. It's just T-posts with mesh, all zip-tied together. And honestly? We're impressed with how much you can't see it! If it wasn't for the little white paint at the top of the T-posts, you really can't see it from inside the house or even from most angles in the garden.

The Long-Term Deer Solution

Our plan for the future is to continue building a green wall across the back of the property. Our Green Giant Arborvitae have grown so beautifully, and some of them are starting to touch and make that green screen that will eventually keep the deer out naturally.

Quick note: When we say arborvitae, Green Giant is actually a hybrid with cypress. This particular kind doesn't become deer food like Emerald Green and North Pole arborvitae do. Spring Grove and Green Giant are very similar in that way—they're actually sports of each other.

We also think it would be nice to get our hands on a big old blue spruce and stick it right back there for a pop of blue. Just continue that green wall concept like we're doing on the sides of the property up front, and that becomes our permanent deer fence.

The Fabric Hose Revelation

These fabric hoses connecting our yard enforcers together have been so handy! They're ultra heavy-duty, and you can't even see them during the growing season. They come in 50-foot and 100-foot lengths—we got the 100-foot length not realizing we probably only needed 50 feet, but hey, now we know!

The really cool thing about yard enforcers is that you can pair them on the same line. You can have one live hose that goes to the first one, and then you can connect them over and over again and make an entire wall of protection. Honestly, we think these have saved our garden from the deer.

A Quick Shout-Out to Our Gloves

Can we take a second to talk about these waterproof insulated gloves? If we were going to be product placement people, it would be for these gloves. Our fingers aren't sore, cold, or wet while doing all this winterization work. They're absolute game-changers for fall and winter garden tasks!

Taking Care of Drip Irrigation

We have a four-way splitter from Orbit with easy-turning knobs, and it connects to our drip irrigation system. We actually have eight zones of drip irrigation now because we have one of these on the hose bib in the back too. The best part? We can control it all from an app on our phones.

Here's the important thing to remember about drip irrigation winterization: the actual drip irrigation in the ground with the emitters—all that brown and black tubing—doesn't need to be blown out in our area. We've heard of some people blowing it out, but it's not something we have to do. As the water expands when it freezes, it just pops out of the holes. It's been perfectly fine for us.

What we do take in are:

• The battery-operated timers (we pull the batteries out)
• The pressure regulator
• The filter
• All the little connection pieces

These small pieces could freeze and break, so it's easy enough to disconnect them and bring them inside for winter. We just use the quick connects to pull everything off (though sometimes "quick" connects aren't so quick—you've got to jiggle them around a little bit).

Last year, we actually left these out by accident and had to replace one because we also left the live water on. One of the pieces just exploded off! We had to have the plumber come out and fix it. Lesson learned!

The Drip Irrigation Game-Changer

With a summer like ours this year—sheer drought after inconsistent rain—our garden just wouldn't have done a third as well as it did without the drip irrigation. We always talk about drip irrigation as a supplement, but this year it was the entire nutrition source. There was nothing else happening, and the garden desperately needed that water.

It can be intimidating for sure, but we have some older videos where we talked about how we installed drip around the new terrace garden. The process hasn't changed—we might be a little more knowledgeable about how much water to give different plants, but ultimately it's the same process.

Hose Link: A Total Game Changer

The Hose Link system has been a complete game-changer for us! They came out with a 100-foot hose this year, which is exactly what we needed in our garden. We're on a half-acre lot that's kind of perfectly rectangular, and we only had two hose spigots at the time—one in front, one in back. To reach that back corner, we needed at least 100 feet.

We highly recommend Hose Link. We've had a very positive experience with it. Our mounting system is super simple. For one, we took a 4x4, cemented it into the ground, then went to the plumbing department and got a flange and a nipple (1-inch diameter), and it just slides in.

For our other mounting, we did something even simpler—just took a 1-inch diameter pipe from the plumbing section and put it in the ground with some cement. That's probably what we'd do if we were starting fresh with Hose Link today. It's so streamlined!

The best part? We can use the quick connect to disconnect everything, it's got a nice handle, it's all reeled up, and now we just put it in the garage for winter. No stress, no mess.

Winterizing the Fountains (The Details)

The Borghazi fountain was new for us this year, and we'd say it was a hit! We loved how gentle and pretty the water flow was, and it had a great sound to it. We do think we need to be better about keeping it clean next year—there were a couple of leaves and a little algae buildup.

Here's the process for winterizing:

1. Get the pump out (there's a little plug to disconnect)
2. Store all electronic and plastic pieces in the garage
3. Put some soft material inside (like old towels) to soak up extra moisture
4. Place the ceramic bits carefully
5. Drape a tarp over it (we use an 8x10, doubled)
6. Secure it with bungee cords—this is crucial because our freezing cold winter winds would take that tarp off like a sail!

The only reason we're covering them is to keep the majority of winter moisture and snow off. No electronic bits, no plastic bits that could get damaged.

The Katarina Fountain

This fountain is a doozy! It's heavy—about 800 pounds total between all the different pieces. But we love it, so it's worth the effort. The pump and electrical wire go through a wax seal thing and all the way down into the ground where it gets plugged in, so the whole piece needs to tip to get the pump out.

The downside of these fountains is definitely the maintenance—keeping them clean during the season and the putting together and taking apart process. But we think it's totally worth it! We use a proper fountain cover for this one, and when we put the bungee cord on it, it looks like a giant mushroom. Kind of adorable, actually.

On one of those sad, cold winter days when we're yearning for the garden, we'll come out and clean these all up properly. But for now, they just need to dry out a bit.

Bringing in the Professional: Winterizing the Pondless Waterfall

For our pondless waterfall, we brought in Bob from Deckers (the same company that installed it) to help us close it down for winter. Why do we need to close it down? Well, there's a pump down in the vault, and you don't want that pump to freeze because it can damage it.

Here's what Bob did:

1. Uncovered the vault
2. Pulled the pump
3. Pumped the water down a bit
4. Used a blower to blow the water back out through the spillway
5. Blew out the autofill line (which connects to our in-ground sprinkler system that was already blown out)

And that's it! We don't have to do anything with it all winter. Next spring, it just gets put back together in reverse—cleaned up, refilled, and reinstalled. Easy!

The Pondless Waterfall: A Year of Learning

We have to say, this pondless waterfall was one of the highlights of our entire gardening year. We learned a whole lot about it, and everyone who watches our videos saw us go through some fun adventures with it. If anyone needs a pondless waterfall, we can't recommend Deckers enough—they're awesome!

Our Street-Walking Deer Problem

One funny thing we've noticed: for some reason in our neighborhood, the deer come from the street. They're just walking down the road like they own the place. Street-walking deer! (And not that kind of neighborhood, thank you very much.) That's why we're still going to have to spray the front of the garden this winter even with all our other deer protection in place.

Wrapping Up Water Winterization

So that's how we put our water features to bed for winter! It seems like a lot, but once you get into a routine, it's really not that bad. The key things to remember:

• Get water out of fountains and cover them
• Bring in yard enforcers and remove batteries
• Disconnect and store drip irrigation timers and connection pieces
• Roll up and store hoses properly
• Have professionals winterize complex systems like pondless waterfalls

Taking care of these tasks now means everything will be ready to go when spring arrives, and you won't have any nasty surprises from freeze damage. Trust us, it's worth taking the time to do it right!

Thanks for growing with us!

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