Garden Centre

Monday, November 24, 2008

Protecting your Plants in Winter

More and more of the plants we are offered in nurseries and garden centres are not winter-hardy in our climate. Now the weather has turned icy, we’re seeing the effects of bitter weather, wind, rain and chill, on those plants. Some of them can cope with a few hours of chill but not a prolonged cold spell, while others won’t even survive one night of below zero temperatures.

There are a number of ways you can protect plants that aren’t fully winter-hardy:

Tender climbers against walls can be protected by fleece tacked onto light wooden batting to act as a frame. This is good for hibiscus and other tropical region plants but may not keep them safe in full cold – really they need greenhouse overwintering.

Tender bulbs and herbaceous plants (ie those like peonies that die back) should always be given a thick covering blanked of manure or old leaves to prevent the soil around them from freezing. In the spring, new shoots can be protected with a loose layer of straw – don’t use straw in winter though, as it’s insulating properties are lower than a lot of people think.

Even evergreens can suffer and Monkey Puzzle trees are a case in point. Like many other mild zone evergreens, they will thrive better if given a layer of mulch around their root areas to keep the soil free from freezing. This protects the roots and also allows the tree to take up moisture from the soil – because such trees come from regions that don’t freeze, they need more winter moisture than evergreens from colder regions.

Really tender plants are best grown in containers so that can be taken inside during bad spells of weather. It’s a good idea to take cuttings from any potentially tender plants that haven’t been grown in pots so that if the worst happens, you have a replacement plant to take over from the one you’ve lost to the winter.

Choose outdoor pots that a fully frost proof or they will crack. Move unused containers into the shed or greenhouse and if there are any that can’t be taken in, put them on feet or lift them from the soil to stop waterlogging.

Labels: bad weather gardening, tender plants, winter garden tasks

The All Seasons Gardener at 9:28 AM

---