winterizing garden beds

Last year we used wheat straw to cover our plants. It stayed wet and we lost some from rot.
What do you use in your garden?

I use leaves. Me and my nieghbors have plenty. BEV

Me, too. They're mostly shredded, but not always. Large whole leaves do tend to either clump up or blow away in winter winds, but smaller pieces work pretty well. Most are either mowed or shredded with a leaf vac. Even some of the smaller cut up ones blow away, but enough stay home.

I hoard leaves every fall and mulch all beds with them and use the rest for composting. Worms love those leaves and in spring my beds are crawling with worms. I do love leaves!

Karen

I only cover evergreen plants, the rest I cover is purely cosmetic.

Leaves here, too.

I used pine needles on my perennial beds last year. I put them on in the late fall and raked them off in the spring. I put wire cylinders around my roses and filled them with hay, but some of it was moldy by springtime, so I'm contemplating using bark mulch on the roses this time.

I'm new to perennials and am a little confused. The plants I have include Coreopsis, Coneflower, Dayllies, Dianthus, Verbena, and, Veronica. Most are on the small size and it has been quite cold for a long time now, unusual for this area (Flat Rock, NC 7A/6B.) My main question is am I suppose to apply extra mulch around the plants (and how much might that be) and am I suppose to also cover the crowns? I realize this may be different for each plant. Do I cut these to the ground? I also have some perennials in containers. I have Daylillies in containers and they look really bad. The foliage is brown and looks dead but doesn't seem to be drying or do I just cut it to the soil level? I can tell you how to grow roses but this perennial thing, I'm at a total loss. They all look so dead. Please help!! Thanks!

rosesareblue, if your plants are hardy to your zone, you really don;t have to cover them. I don't cut any of my perennials back in the fall as I want them to collect snow as an insulating blanket. Most likely the plants that look dead are only going or have gone dormant and should put up new growth in the spring. If you are going to leave your plants in the containers they will need a little more protection. If you have an unheated garage you could move them in to, that would be good. Also give them an occasional watering.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/933/
Might help some. :-) Try the Container Gardening forum, too, if you still have more questions!

Now this is a discussion I can use. I havereally wondered about mulching. I have several large perennial beds (65' x 6') . I never seem to lose any plants....but I have never felt comfortable with this whole business of mulching. I mulch my roses up to about 8 inches with whatever is handy mainly leaves. Generally I mulch Lilies 4 inches or so. I understand that the purpose of this mulch is not to keeep the plants warm..but to keep them cold ..that is the temperature stays the same and there is no heaving.

Now the perennials that have green crowns I tuck leaves under them , but leave the plants themselves uncovered. I have often wondered about covering the crowns of these plants as I would think they might rot out...

Interestingly , I am growing fox glove in my garden as well as a botanical garden that I maintain. Now I got behind on maintenance at the botanical garden because of holiday trips and did not get the leaves raked up until today. The foxglove here at home are thriving. The ones at the botanical garden really look sick. There is another difference though. The ones at the botanical garden are iced in while those at home are not. There is a difference of 500 plus feet of elevation change as well as a river which creates different micro climates.

Al .. do I understand that you cover the crowns of plants like these... that is those that stay green all winter???

If you visit public gardens they all seem to use leaves as mulch.I agree the largest benefit of winter mulching is to keep your plants cold.Frozen,thaw,frozen,thaw is hard on some plants e.g. roses.A light covering of leaves with plants with crowns would be fine.I wouldn't use a 12" of them.You can cut back perennials if you want.Generally I cut mine back to 10" or 12".The stems hold the leaves in place.Its easier to locate your plants in the spring.Also I find that it protects the new shoots from rabbits,because the are not so readily exposed.I don't do alot of spring clean up until the nights are staying above 50 degrees.

Yes, I am confused/questioning about the 'mulch' thing, too. This year I didn't get around to mulching the beds and I'll be interested to see how the perennials survive.

The heaving from wide temperature changes is the problem here. And rot from too much rain. If we had some constant snow cover it would be nice, but it's really hit or miss.

Us too - we get a "Nor'easter" that closes schools and is a State Emergency with 4 feet of snow then a few days later will get rain which will wash it all off the roads and banks, you know? And settle into all the cracks and low spots and then freeze. I think I may just have explained frost heave to myself.

hi folks..sorry to cut in on this discussion but maybe I can be of some help. I usually would say to add muclh to your gardens/plants, then it would be dual purpose for the spring as you may be able to work it into the garden..depending on the mulch. HOWEVER..I am cash strapped this year so could not buy any mulch so all I did was drag extra soil within the garden to place around the crowns of my plants..mostly roses.
I bought a "Planket" for two of my planters but looking at my others I may regret not doing it for my Lantana which is in a container..as we had a cold spell here this month.

hope this helps & sorry if I intruded.

Of course you haven't intruded, cindy! We're always looking for fresh points of view.

I could put some soil around the roots of selected plants but we have to be careful about the clay-ish component of our garden soil and how the moisture stays around. I don't have roses anymore, mainly because they are so sensitive to our winter moisture and summer humidity.

I am cash strapped too and I did manage to snag some leaves from the neighbors so I have used them on a few plants and I also snagged some pine boughs from a Christmas tree lot and have added them to a few plants for protection. We'll see how that goes.

My main reason for mulching beds is feeding the soil life more than temperature control or plant protection. Worms seem to love those old leaves, too.

Karen

It's been awhile since I've been on this site and I am wondering if there has been any contact from David who
gardened in Mich. and shared so many beautiful photos and good info with us. Last I heard he was moving
and planning a new garden. I still have notes on plant combos and often refer to them. David, are you out there?

I am pretty much strapped for raw materials here as I only hvae one large tree & we get a lot of wind in the winter so I am lucky if I have any leaves at all..I looked today & there's not much left on the garden,even when the neighbors leaves blow onto it! :0)

I have spent the day trying to get my chipper shredder running with no success. I have plenty of leaves and it looks like I am going ot compost them the old fashioned way. My dw looks at the huge pile with some uncertainty. I wish I could send some your way. I get plenty of leaves from my yard and my neighbors as well. Ihave been known to go through the neighborhood witrh my little truck and pick up bags of leaves left out for recycling.

Happy new year and beautiful gardens to all.

John

I bought a chipper shredder from Gardeners Supply that is electric. I just love it and it shreds leaves as well as branches up to 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Anyway all I have to do is flip a switch after plugging it in. I don't have a lot of leaves at my house, but what I do have get run over by the lawn mower and left on the yard.

Don't I wish I had bought an electric.

Well, I didn't have a chipper and I had always wanted one to make mulch for the garden beds, but I didn't really want a gas powered one. This one is on wheels and can be rolled wherever I want easily. Now that I am home alone, that is the best answer for me.

Just checked out that electric chipper/shredder and that's my birthday/mother's day gift to me this spring! Looks good. Does it shred/chip really finely?

Fairly fine. I just got a chance to try it out a couple times and haven't tried it on larger branches yet. 1 inch branches went through great.