This spring was the first time I started a garden, being from South Africa, it was a great learning experience and most of the plants have taken.
Now to ensure the plants survive the winter and all the hard work and expense won't be in vain come next spring.
What should I be doing to prepare the plants for the winter? I see mulch in some neighbours gardens, do I need to do this too?
I have a 7 new trees, do they need to be protected somehow? 3 of them are near the sidewalk, what can I do to protect them from the snowplough piling snow on top of them?
I have mostly perennials like hostas, peonies, irises, and other small shrubs that are in their first year of growth. I also have tomato plants, green peppers. Do I cut these back or leave them?
There is also lavender and some herbs like rosemary, origanum, marjoram, basil and thyme. Do I just leave them as be? Let nature take its course? Or do I put them in pots and bring the herbs inside? Some are perennials too.
thanks for any advice! ;)
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ok then, I'll just sit back and not panic! Let nature take its course. Thanks for the advice.
you probably don't need the styrofoam covers other than for roses.
Peonies are very hardy as are most perennials. The foliage will die down in most cases and regrow again in the spring. So there is no need to protect the foliage as it's going to die off anyway.
The only problem I can think of would be if all the snow melted and it went to minus 40 celsius, that's when a leaf mulch would be helpful but to be honest, I'm not sure how much. Better than nothing I suppose but the liklihood of that happening is probably pretty slim in your area.
All your trees are very hardy, just make sure no salt gets at them.
wow, thanks for all the info.
Are peonies hardy? Do I put styrofoam covers on them and other low lying perennials? Some are knee height, but others didn't grow much and are only calf height.
So from what I can gather I shouldn't trim any shrubs, but wait for spring?
I am in the GTA near Georgetown, Ontario.
The trees I have are paper birch, about 5ft, and the 3 by the sidewalk are cedars, about 3ft high. I also have 2 Lilac Silk trees, but they are tall, do I put anything at their base?
thanks again
for me, because I know winter is coming and I can't do anything about it :)
I'm not sure where you are located but I am outside of Ottawa and we get very cold winters. I typically plant hardy plants that don't require any winter attention but sometimes I like to experiment with borderline hardy plants too. I cover those with styrofoam covers that you can buy in almost any garden centre in various sizes and put a heavy stone on top so they don't blow away. I cover my lavender because sometimes they make it and sometimes they don't so this ensures I have big plants the following year. I also cover my blue hydrangea, hybrid tea roses, anything that is not reliably hardy around here.
You can cover perennials with leaves, usually there are lots of maple leaves around and if you don't have any neighbours are usually very happy to donate theirs. I don't bother much with leaf mulch though because I find the styrofoam less work. If we get a good snow cover early, mulch isn't really necessary, because snow is the best insulator. It is rare around here for the snow to melt early and still have cold temperatures but if you are in an area where the snow isn't that heavy and does melt often, then mulch may be a good thing for you. Ask your neighbours what the winters are like for the garden.
If you are in a windy area, evergreens will dry out and you will see winterburn so give them a good watering before freeze up. The trouble is we never know when that is going to be. Some people also wrap their evergreens up like mummies to protect them from drying out. This is a lot of work, I prefer to plant things that don't need that kind of attention because eventually the plant is going to become too big to wrap up like that. If you want to wrap though the best thing is to wrap burlap around 4 stakes so the burlap isn't touching the plant.
I'm not sure what kinds of trees you have but fruit trees need winter protection, you can paint on Scoot which deters mice, etc feeding on the bark. They go after fruit trees first but if their food source is low I suppose they would go after any bark. Tree wraps should go on newly planted trees on the southern and westsern exposures to prevent splitting trunks.
As for snow from the walkway, that is fine as long as the area is well drained so when the snow melts in the spring the roots aren't sitting in water. If it is not well drained you will have to find somewhere else to put the snow OR risk loosing the plants and do something else in that area next year. Remember not to use salt on your walkway because when it snows again, that salt will go onto your plants when you shovel. Salt spray is another cause of damage to plants when they are grown near streets. You can only protect them until they get so big, the best thing is to plant salt tolerate plants or plant nothing at all in those areas.
Annuals such as peppers and tomatoes and flowers can be cut and removed when they have been killed by the cool night temperatures. I generally leave everything else and do a more proper spring clean up because some varieties of perennials don't want their stems cut, they will rot. If you have a major disease such as black spot on roses, you don't want that hanging around over the winter so remove diseased foliage.
You can try potting the herbs and bringing them indoors. I usually don't bother and prefer to buy new ones each year. I have tried bringing them inside but they need a lot of light and high humidity and this is not availabe in my house over the winter. I have two big geraniums that I do pot and they go in one of the basement windows and get one or two modest waterings over the winter. They seem ok with that.
I bring in my garden ornaments so they don't crack and drain the garden hoses and bring them inside too - that is usually the worst job because I am watering until the bitter end and draining the hoses is not fun when it's freezing cold outside.
I can't really think of anything else, I try to do as less work at possible :)