Winter is quickly approaching, so it's time to pack up all of the décor around your property and get things ready for snow and ice. Here, you'll find a few tips to help you prepare, pack up, and store your warm-weather outdoor décor to protect its condition until it's time to pull it out again when spring rolls around.

Potters

Potters can break when they are exposed to freezing temperatures, so if you love them and don't want to replace them, you should probably put them away.

Before you store your potters, you have to decide if you want to empty and clean them or store them with this year's soil inside. If your storage space is limited, you'll do best to empty the soil and clean the pots. If you want to reuse the soil next year, you can save it in larger buckets instead of a bunch of small pots.

If you decide to empty and stack the pots to conserve space, you'll want to layer something in between each pot. You can use layers of newspaper, packing peanuts, or even crumbled plastic bags – just something to keep them from sliding together and scratching the finish. Before you fill it with lining material, make sure that each pot is fully dry – inside and out – or you will have mold growing in the lining material by the time spring rolls around.

Water Fountains

Any water features in your yard must be emptied, cleaned, and stored. If you were to allow resin or ceramic water features out during the winter, they'd catch the precipitation, freeze and they will crack. The only water fountains you want to keep out during the winter are concrete, but you'll still want to winterize it.

Storing the Items

If you are limited on space, don't fret – you don't have to try to squeeze all of your fair-weather décor in your garage, shed or basement – instead, you can lease a small storage unit for everything. Think about how nice it would be to be able to walk through the areas that typically store all of these things during the winter. You can use the storage unit for all of your seasonal items – the snow stuff during the spring and summer and the spring and summer stuff during the winter. Contact a company like U.S. Storage Inc.

Get busy now and by the time the first flake of snow falls, all of your warm-weather décor will be tucked away neatly until spring.