Winter Prep

I feel like I've learned a lot aout gardening in the last few years, and particularly this year since I found DG. But I still don't quite have the whole overwintering thing down. What do you mulch and when? What comes in the house vs. in an unheated garage? Where do the pond plants go?

So with a cold and wet weather in the forecast, this seems like a good fall to try and get my ducks in a row. I have lots of questions, but perhaps I'll start with my African Honeybush (melianthus major). I bought it around this time a year ago, read conflicting hardiness accounts and dithered around about whether to plant it out or bring it in for the winter. Eventually I flailed and did the worst of both worlds - left it in its 2 gallon pot and sunk it in the ground with some leaf mulch on top.

Inexplicably it pulled through just fine and is currently growing away still in its pot in the ground. So, should I dig it out, unpot it, and plant it out for the winter? Or call it luck getting thru one winter unscathed and bring it in for the winter? And if bring it in, how does one decide if something needs to go in a dark basement vs. hanging out next to a window for the winter?

So post your words of wisdom or winter prep questions here.

Now is when I pull the bulbs in that can't overwinter. I leave my water plants in the water and let them freeze. Any zone 6 and above I dig up and bring into my sun room now and the rest I let die if they choose to. This gives my wife a lot of things to buy next year to fill the holes. LOL

I'm with Soferdig on the live or die theory, although I rarely buy anything that is termed a tender perennial. I don't have a very good place to overwinter anything, so have just never tried it. I do move my pond plants to the lowest level and keep the pump going - they seem to do fine.

That said, this year I have moved into the house some small clumps of culinary herbs that die down in winter (chives, basil, oregano, stevia) to experiment with keeping fresh herbs through the winter.

I do admire brugmansias, etc. but have not ever grown them. I'll be curious to read how the rest of you address these half-hardy plants.

Re mulching, I clean everything up, mark with small bamboo sticks so I don't lose things, give it all a top dressing of compost, and mulch with mowed up leaves if I can get them before they sog out.

I could use some words of wisdom re raspberries. I'm never quite sure what to do with them, other than try to pull out all the dang quack grass that seems to thrive at their feet.

Well I can offer some words about raspberries at least (the wisdom part is iffy).

What I do with mine is clip this year's canes down to the ground within the next month or so, tie in the fresh canes coming up, give them a nice blanket of mulch, and tell them to be good until spring.

I have several kinds of raspberries and the golden variety ('Anne') is just now producing - had a handful for breakfast this morning. It's nice having a couple different varieties to spread out the harvest.

That's what I do also. Clip off the canes that produced this summer. They tend to travel so I suppose you could move the new canes if necessary.

What do you mean by 'tie in the canes' ? I also cut the old canes to the ground but never quite know what to do with next year's canes. Mine are over my head. Some years I snip them off to about 5' - other years I gather 2-3 together and tie them down to the highest wire. I don't really like the latter for some reason.

Well I have my raspberries against either a wall or fence. Those against the wall have a really tall trellis behind them and a wisteria to the left, so I actually tie them in spots to the trellis and let the tops lean over and entwine with the wisteria. It creates a tunnel effect over my gate, that is kind of cool. The ones against the fence I tie them to supports enough that they will stand upright and then again let the tops kind of arch over, because I think it looks pretty - plus it brings the fruit down to pickable range. Would yours arch over if you secured them at about 5 feet and left the tops to do their own thing?

I have my old canes remain and trim them off whenever my DW gets to them. LOL. The new ones are suspended in an area with fence posts with tied cross wires to support the next generation of berries. I like this because I cankeep the old paths for picking each year. Then I don't get lost in the maize of new growth.

Okay, so I'll sink my true pond plants deep and hope for the best. But what about the marginal plants? I have a really pretty variegated Japanese iris that I just bought - it likes water but not that much water. Right now it's in about two inches of water. Should I plant it out for the winter?

Here's pic of my African Honeybush. You can see why I want to save it. I'm thinking I'll play it safe and bring it in for the winter since it's supposed to be so nasty.

Is anyone doing direct fall seeding of annuals this year, or should we wait for spring for that as well due to the doom and gloom predictions?

I usually wait til the cold weather takes things, but since the weather seems to be holding out so far I may start mulching my fuchsias, bananas and abilutilon

My DW has hauled in the tenders and all of the vegetables frost tonight and from now on. It is good to have a person who makes your life much better. Thanks Karen. I have been driving day and night from Montana to Michigan and back and arrived last night who knows when. Slept till 4:30 pm today and going to bed soon. Loooooooong week!

Very pretty.

I heard on Thursday that we may end up with a very mild winter. If recent weather is any judge, it could be true. The weather forecasters don't seem to know much. I always tell my kids to become weather forecasters because there is zero job accountability.

I took all the leaves off the roses today. Tedious job but nice to have it done. Put the last two plants in the green shed. Nice day.

Hmm.. That's a process I am unfamiliar with, taking leaves off roses. Would you mind saying why you do that? thanks in advance!

One reason is I get tired of picking them up every day. Two it helps with the winter clean-up. I have so much black spot that I try to remove all the leaves that fall. Another reason is it helps them to go dormant and I live in a colder area. Looks nice and neat too.^_^
I left the one red rose bud and the one yellow peace rose that were still blooming.

thanks, the black spot situation was the one reason I was guessing but the others make sense as well. :)

I didn't know that about rose leaves either. I'm going to do that tomorrow! I pruned today. I guess hacked is more like it. Taking rose leaves off sounds easier and less harmful to the plant!

I have no idea what I'm suppose to do so I'm doing what I do best - winging it. I figure anything lost can be replaced next year.

So far I've put everything up against the wall to prevent being knocked over. I've taken a couple of pots and stuck them into paper mache pots, in hopes of insulating them a little. I'm going to take some window boxes and sit smaller pots in it to keep them from getting blown away. A lady in the store suggested I use burlap but didn't explain how.

Anything not hardy mulch heavily with some manure in it to provide heat with decomposing. I leave allmy grasses intact because they look great with snow on them. I fertilize tree roots for root growth in spring. All perennials, grass clippings, leaves etc are shredded and composted. You are right what dies is an opportunity for next years trades.

I always "try" to mulch my dahlias, gunnera and banana with leaves before a really heavy freeze sets in. I also end November with the massive migration of all of my pots into the greenhouses for the winter. Sometimes (basically each time I move them out in the spring, and then again each time I move them in in the winter) I wonder whether it is worth the enormous effort that it takes. Then every winter when I have a few things blooming here and there in the greenhouse and can putter out there in the plants without frozen fingers, I decide that it definitely is.

When I am mulching with leaves, I make sure that I shred them first as it gets rid of all of the little sluggies that tend to hide there... dual purpose!

Kymm, I will tell you that as far as direct winter sowing goes for ME in my yard, I never waste my time. I have such a terrible time with slugs that unless stuff is basically slug proof, any little seedlings will be gone before I ever see them. We don't have the same problem on the other side where the slugs aren't so horrible, and we do direct seed poppies, morning glory, etc over there right now.