In these days of central heating, electric blankets, and storm windows, the pleasure and necessity have gone out of tucking the children into bed “for a long winter’s nap.”
But outdoors, gardeners face the same hazards their ancestors knew because winter is still unpredictable, and its effect on gardens is as uncertain as always.
Three years ago, we had a bad winter with prolonged low temperatures and heavy snow. Then, after everyone had prepared for a repeat performance, we were treated to a medium-sized winter. Many of us were then lulled into complacency.
Then came last winter, Old Mother Nature put on what may well be her masterpiece in our lifetime, at least in the New York area where I live.
Losing Oriental Poppies and Garden Chrysanthemums
For the first time in 25 years, I lost Oriental poppies and even garden chrysanthemums.
A whole bed of foxglove died except for one 6-foot spike that has since done its best to produce enough seeds to compensate for its fellows’ loss. From all reports, other country sections also suffered heavy garden losses.
But Nature is never all bad. Ironically, I didn’t lose a single rosebush from Winterkill (though some roses succumbed in other years), and blossoms were bigger, better, and more prolific than ever before. We worried ourselves sick about the area beneath the apple trees.
It was a solid sheet of ice. We tried to chop drainage channels to let surface water runoff during daytime thaws.
But our little ditches froze at once, and the pond spread until low-hanging branches were caught in the ice and couldn’t be freed until April.
So, just to be contrary, we had the biggest and best crop of apples ever! We’ll continue spraying, but the fruit is clean, healthy, worm-free, and glossy. The pseudo-skating pond did no serious harm but probably killed off a lot of pests.
Although there may be unpredictable winter hazards— and the gamble is part of the fun—there are always normal winter problems that must be taken care of and basic principles of good winter garden care that are generally applicable.
Here are some reminders to be adapted to your situation.
Consider Your House and Land Problems First
Let’s use last year as an example of winter hazards, although we might not have another like it in a century.
First, we had an early hard freeze, which did not thaw out until late spring. A pickax couldn’t crack the ground, as I found when I tried to set out a dormant plant that arrived in March!
On top of this, we had a series of several light snowstorms (total snow cover was below normal), and each one was followed by rain, sleet, or a quick thaw followed by an equally quick freeze. Each new snow, therefore, was quickly impacted into layers of hard white ice.
Near-level land became ponds. It was agony to look at beds of favorite perennials or spring-planted bulbs and see nothing but ice. This could happen in any winter, so our first winter protection problem is drainage or, more accurately, grading and runoff.
Make long-range plans to improve your garden drainage: Under normal conditions, good drainage means that water will sink downward into the ground.
But when the ground is frozen, the only way to get rid of water is to grade the land so that water will run off by force of gravity.
The only lucky people last winter were those with natural slopes, good landscaping grading and runoff, raised garden beds or terraces, or raised individual plantings permitting plants to escape the ponds beneath.
Setting Out Individual Plants
Regrading and relandscaping are expensive professional jobs. There is another, though only partial, solution for the average gardener. Set out individual plants or beds at higher-than-ground levels.
I do this with new treasures, placing a circle of stones about open-arms size around the plants to protect them.
I fill the area inside the stones with compost, humus, good loam, and a little terrace. Of course, This improves plant drainage and is singled out for special care.
The garden level is generally no different than before, but last winter, I noted that the ice ponds never overflow these special raised-bed plantings. My roses, too, are set high and mounded up still higher in winter.
Protect Basic Plants
Protect your basic plantings from the danger above. Every homeowner with a steep, sloping roof faces the problem of snow sliding off the roof and onto fragile plants beneath.
We have a steep pitch to our roof, and the thunderous roar when the snow starts to fall sounds like a mountain slide.
Many people like to place their finest plants in front of the house, but possibly shifting plantings could save a lot of damage.
The sturdier plantings in front of our house can take the brunt of the crash—the hybrid rhododendrons, laurel, Taxus repandens (dwarf yew), and Andromeda.
The more fragile plantings, hardy azaleas, daphnes, holly, and pyracantha, are placed slightly outside the crashing-snow area.
Bleeding hearts, astilbe, and candytuft, which are used as fillers between evergreen plantings, are uninjured because the first two die back in winter, and the candytuft doesn’t mind!
The leucothoe, on either side of the circular doorstep, does take a severe beating from falling snow. But we cut off injured branches for indoor use, and more come along in the spring.
Winter Hazards
Two other winter hazards hang heavy overhead: Clogged gutters filled with leaves can cause melting snow to drip endlessly down on your finest specimen plantings.
Clean and repair them before freezing weather. Overhanging tree branches often crash in winter.
Go out and take a good look upward around your property. You may be appalled at the hanging dead branches along your property line just waiting to conk you—or some passerby.
You may find crisscrossing branches that will surely break and weak crotches that will split under the weight of an ice storm or come crashing down in the first winter gale.
If they fall into your garden, they can break the back of your favorite tree peony or hybrid tea rose.
Snow-Removal Procedure
Plan your snow removal procedure before snowfall: We use the old-fashioned pitch-and-toss snow removal method with a new, wide aluminum snow shovel.
Of course, I favor mechanical assistance in the back-breaking job of snow shoveling, but sometimes, plants are injured if snow blowers are not used carefully.
Walk around your property before the snow flies, and figure out which way to throw it—or blow it—to give maximum clearance with the least plant damage.
It might even be a good idea to drive in a few red-tipped warning stakes to remind you of hidden little beds or choice plants.
Trail on Lawn
Trails across the lawn may damage it. Sometimes, the lawn is gouged out by a shovel or snowplow, making an unsightly path to the front door.
Or guests, the mailman, and strangers must break trail through the snow or try to match footprints with the deep ones Father made in his boots. Treat your lawn with kindness both in summer and winter.
The Big Clean-up
Cleaning up your property in the fall is a big part of getting ready for winter and, to my mind, can be a heap of fun if you set out to enjoy the crisp, fresh air and hearty exercise.
There are several areas to be cleaned up, even on the smallest property, all different.
Lawn
This fall is the best time to begin building next summer’s lawn. If it’s a rebuilding or renovation job, start early and do it thoroughly.
If you don’t renovate, give the lawn a final thorough raking. Clean up twigs, stones, and loose debris.
Clip and edge the corners to avoid a raggedy look all winter long! Beginners mistakenly think leaves left on the lawn make a nice mulch. They don’t. They move down the grass and kill it.
Annuals
The first frost probably killed off your annual flowers long before this, so now it is more than time to clean them up.
Never leave the dead plants in the ground over the winter. Pull, or fork them out, by the roots and burn. (These are not for the compost pile.)
Rake the area “broom-clean” and either turn the soil over, as you do with the vegetable garden, and leave it open to the purifying effects of sun, wind, cold, and snow, or preferably plant it with spring bulbs.
Bulbs
Fork out gladiolus and place them in grocery bags—a bag for each variety—until the tops dry. Then remove the tops, rub the corms clean, and store them in clean bags—labeled, if you have named varieties—in a cool but frost-free place.
Your dahlias and cannas should also be forked out before hard freezing. Cut off dahlia tops a few inches from the ground, leaving the clumps whole.
Let the dahlia tubers dry in the sun for a few hours, and then place the clumps intact in cartons or boxes.
Cover with dark paper and store in a frost-free place. A little sand or peat moss in the bottom of the box helps prevent drying out. Cannas are handled in the same manner.
Tuberous begonias, also killed by the first frost, should be left in their pots until the tops dry off. Then remove the dead tops and store the pots—with the tubers still untouched in the soil—on top of each other in a cool, dry, frost-free place for the winter.
Vegetables
Pull out and burn all vegetable plants except perennials. Throw a layer of compost or humus over the soil if you can.
Turn it over, digging deeply. Do not rake smooth after the clumps have been spayed up.
Uneven clumps, exposed to light, air, and changes in temperature, help to rejuvenate and sanitize the soil. Moreover, overwintering spores, dormant bugs, cocoons, and other pests will be killed by exposure.
Cut off asparagus at ground level as it turns brown, and rake the bed over lightly. Do not fertilize after July 1.
Pull out corn stalks, tomato, and bean plants, first knocking off the good garden soil around them.
The long, straggling squash vines, cucumbers, watermelons, cantaloupes, gourds, and other vine crops must be cleaned up and parent roots yanked out.
Cabbage, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts are hardy enough to leave late in the season, particularly in a mild winter. Leave parsnips until after frost.
Either dig up your last-remaining root vegetables, like radishes, beets, carrots, turnips, and potatoes or weed around each plant and clean up for late use. Onions can be pulled when their tops fall over.
Rhubarb is a perennial and is best left alone. Hand clean the old outer leaves and mulch lightly with soil and dry leaves around the base of each plant.
Never cut off the green tops, but pull when gathering for use. Remove seed pods promptly.
Home Fruits
Sanitation is the most important winter care you can give your fruit trees. Every fallen leaf, every bit of rotted fruit left on the ground, and every dead twig blown off by winter storms is a potential enemy.
Many fruit-tree pests and fungus-type disease spores winter over on the ground. An apple leaf is a perfect haven for dormant eggs, which will hatch thousands of worms next spring.
Other pests, tent caterpillars for one, fasten themselves to the twigs of the type of fruit they favor—as egg clusters or cocoons, which give them perfect protection until they are ready to wreak destruction next year.
To combat these hazards, give each tree a wide circular area of thorough raking beneath the branches.
If you use winter mulch, leave a bare area for a few inches around the trunk to prevent mice from nesting there and destroying the bark. But the raked-clean ground is essential.
Small Fruits Need Little Winter Care
Leave the natural accumulation of leaves beneath your raspberries as ground mulch. Check grapevines for long, loose, hanging stems, but don’t prune them now. Just weave them into the main body of the vine.
Rake beneath the grapes to gather up dropped fruit and empty skins left by the birds and children who secretly shared the crop. Throw a half-bushel of mulch over each of the grape root areas.
Give bush fruits, like blueberries, the same winter mulch of leaves or compost, giving you all basic shrubs and small evergreens.
Providing a deep mulch for new shrubs, vines, and trees the first winter or maybe the first two is always a good idea.
I have a new Bonanza peach bush that I am going to mulch this year, even though it looks very healthy and sturdy because I planted it only last spring.
Perennials
Herbaceous perennials go completely dormant in the winter and lose their tops, dying right down to the ground.
A light mulch of straw, salt hay, or evergreen boughs is sometimes laid over the border in bitter-cold areas.
But after cutting off all dead tops and raking the area clean, it is also a good idea to apply a layer of sifted compost to condition the soil, prevent heaving, and give the plants something friable and humusy to poke through next spring.
Peonies are herbaceous but are treated differently: Cut down as close to ground level as possible, burn the tops, and rake up the area at the base clean as a whistle.
I give mine the added protection of final spraying with Bordeaux mixture, soaking the ground to kill off any botrytis blight that may be around. Do not mulch peonies.
Chrysanthemums, on the other hand, are best cut off a few inches above the ground so the remaining stalks can serve as holders for a light mulch of dry leaves caught in the stems. Don’t smother the plants with a heavy mulch.
Some varieties keep their green leaves all winter; others produce new growth when the mulch is removed early in the spring. Mums are one plant, I found, that greatly resented the ice pond!
Phlox, too, are best cut off a few inches above ground level, if for no other reason than to remind you of their location, as they come up fairly late in the spring. Burn the cut-off tops.
The tops of bulbs, roots, and tubers like daffodils and crocus will completely disappear long before you start your fall cleanup.
But if you grow them in a neglected, naturalized area and the yellowed tops are still there along with weeds, be sure to clean up the area now so they can come up in clean land next spring.
There are two schools of thought among iris fans. Some recommend cutting off the leaves with clean, sharp cuts, about 3” to 4” inches above ground level—then leaving the half-exposed rhizomes, as they are, just below or at ground level.
But some expert amateurs only trim off the yellowed or broken leaves and let the good ones remain intact uncut all winter.
These folks also recommend giving the base a protective mulch of small sifted ashes (cinders) or pebble mulch.
I use clean builder’s sand to cover the exposed part of the rhizomes and prevent excessive heaving during the winter.
Plants and Bulbs That Stay Green All Winter
Some lilies, like Madonna, have a crisp rosette of leaves all winter. When crowns are covered with protective snow, they come through in fine shape.
But since they are subject to frequent freezing and thawing and are easily heaved out of the ground.
44659 by Barbara Black