No flower blooms all year
We have visitors — Jack Frost and Old Man Winter are descending on Nova Scotia, leaving spent blossoms and fallen leaves in their wake.
Now is the time to protect our gardens for the harsh season ahead. Winter wind, heavy snow and icy frost are all hard on plants and soil. A little work now to protect your garden will pay off with happy, healthy plants in the spring.
Here are my top five recommendations for winter garden protection:
1. Mulch. This is so important to protect the soil and insulate plants, especially in winter. Bare soil just blows and washes away too easily. New plantings without proper protection can experience frost-heave, where their bases push out of the soil, resulting in root damage. Use straw, shredded bark or dead leaves. Dead leaves should be collected early in the fall to avoid tannin-rich oak, which don’t decompose well. Two to three inches in depth is sufficient.
2. Prune. Take a walk around your garden and imagine the heavy weight of snow on the bows of your trees and shrubs. This may include snowfall, snow from roofs and snow from plows. Prune any low-hanging or damaged branches to prevent them from breaking.
3. Cover. Sensitive shrubs and tree seedlings can be covered with burlap or horticultural fleece. I recommend using stakes and/or chicken wire to create a structure around the plant. The fabric can be stapled onto the structure. This is particularly beneficial in the early years of a plant’s life, when it is most vulnerable. Cover sensitive broadleaf evergreens like rhododendrons and first-year evergreens; as well as any young plants that are exposed to road salt, ocean spray or wind.
4. Mound. This is helpful for plants with sensitive canes near the ground. Mounding is most often used for sensitive roses, but is also helpful for butterfly bushes and big-leaf hydrangeas. Add a bucket-full of soil around the base of the stem to a depth of eight to 12 inches and uncover in spring.
5. Avoid nitrogen-heavy fertilizer. I recommend avoiding synthetic nitrogen fertilizers all together because they deplete the soil over the long-term, rather than improving it. Typically, I am a proponent of a rich compost for organic amendment, but this is also rich in nitrogen and should be used sparingly in fall. Nitrogen encourages new green growth on plants, which is more sensitive to damage in cold temperatures. Instead, feed with a handful of potassium-rich organic amendment such as wood-stove ash, potash or greensand.