WINTER CHORES

What's New/To do for Winter --What to do in the garden

December and January is a great time to begin working on a compost bed. Spread soil over layered composted material. Rake up any plant debris that can harbor pests. Make sure mulching is done.

Take hardwood cuttings of many shrubs. Root cuttings can also be taken from trees and perennials. primula's, oriental poppies, acanthus, staghorn sumac etc.
Start working on that rock garden that you haven't yet built.

Winter is a great time to gather stray rocks.

If you have heavy soils, this is a good time to spread coarse sand or gravel to help soil texture when dug in next spring. Gypsum can also be beneficial

Order your flower seeds. Complete the planting of roses and deciduous trees if soil conditions are favorable. Prune and train your climbing vines.

Make sure your healed in bulbs are protected from freezing.

January is also a good time to begin the construction of physical structures, beds, paths or other features. Remove what is no longer needed.

Protect your pond, esp. if concrete. Take out filters and if the weather is cold put in a pond heater. Submerge tender pond plants such as papyrus so they cannot freeze. Floating rubber balls in the pond can also help prevent freeze damage.

In February summer blooming clematis can be hard pruned, so can wisteria and grapes.
If the weather is mild, begin to plant hardy perennials. Plant your lilies in late Feb. March.

Start cleaning up your plants. In the rock garden, mulch with a fresh top dressing of sand, grit and leafmold.

In your fruit garden
Rhubarb Lift and divide, or plant new varieties in rich, deep soil.
Finish planting and pruning your trees and bushes .
Do not do so in severe freezing weather. Burn all prunings, and make sure your shears remain sterile.

Dormant oil spray fruit trees, weather permitting.
Inspect stored fruit and remove the spoilage.
Apply a winter fertilizer to strawberries, gooseberries and currants.
Prune back gooseberries to two or three buds. Prune blueberries, selectively removing about a third of the oldest shoots.
Start fertilizer applications on fruit trees. Make sure young trees are mulched.

February can bring some of our coldest weather.
Prune to the ground all fruited autumn fruiting raspberries. Tip summer fruiting varieties.
Protect or cover with fabric cloth your strawberries. Begin work on your blackberry/cane fruit.
Be prepared to start spraying copper fungicides or lime sulpher -- next month.

In the vegetable garden
Continue harvesting your root vegetables, mulch the carrots and parsnips against freezing. Plan next years garden. Clear any spent vegetables, weeds, apply mulch and manures.

I often cover some of my garden areas with polythene, held down with two by fours or rocks. This will keep the soil dry and friable for later tilling. The same trick applies to where one wants to plant dormant trees. Often the soil is so wet that is hard to plant. Cover your proposed planting areas in December with such material, and when the plants arrive you can plant! The soil will also be warmer.

If you have vegetables under cloches -- protect from freezing.

In February start sowing cool season spinach, plant shallots. Place seed potatoes in a light and frost free place, allow to sprout. Begin to fertilize the vegetable garden with a 5-10-10 type fertilizer.



"Winter sounds like a warm fire crackling.
Winter looks like thousands of diamonds on the ground.
Winter feels like cold faces and hands.
Winter smells like cold, fresh breezes.
Winter tastes like warm chocolate chip cookies dipped in hot chocolate."

Sarah Davidson

Winter is a time of glistening berries, hollies bedecked, Pyracantha that beckon to the birds. It is a time to take pleasure in the patterns of frost upon leaves. Their may be few flowers in this season but the seed heads of clematis, ornamental grasses still grace the garden.

The reds of Nandina, Bergenia and many others are brought by the winter cold. So are many other variegations. One garden here in Sequim has few flowers, but come every winter does it ever stand out. It is a bright mixture of Eunymous, Red twig Dogwoods, Skimmia teamed with others lift the spirits.

Christmas Hellebore

In February Snowdrops (Galanthus) make their showy appearance, partnered with the winter- red leaves of Bergenia is a wonderful combination. Later when the bulb becomes untidy the foliage is submerged by the new leaves of the Bergenia.

It is also a time of magic for the grasses, the seeds heads are tawny gold and icicles of frost glow in winter light.

(c) Herb Senft

WINTER CHORES

OR BEST NOT FORGOT! --The Flower Bed

February is a mite shy in days, much less sunny ones, but it is the cusp between the last hardwood cuttings and the beginning of soft green ones.

Hardwood cuttings you can still take include: Camellia, Daphne, hydrangea, holly, lilac, Oregon grape, wiegelia and willow. Late February: Soft green cuttings can include forced dahlias. Plant in a greenhouse situation, then in March begin snipping off growth as it emerges from the tubers. Aubretia, armeria, coral-bells, dianthus, perennial lobelia and sedums are all good green cuttings this month and next.

Like the dahlia, delphiniums and aconitum can be greenhouse forced into March propagatable growth. A good indicator for successful cuttings is when you see white hair roots on the basil nodes of the plants.

Divide and replant crocosmia or montbretia in enriched soils. Ornamental grasses also divide well at this time of the year. Some bulbs such as Snowdrops are very dividable during or right after their bloom. Don't worry about the green foliage!Depending on the weather outlook, over wintered plants like geraniums, fuchsias and rhodohypoxis be fed and positioned to receive more light

Top dress rockeries with sharp sand or grit. If soil is needed use a compost of equal part's leaf mold, loam and grit.

Trees and Fruit If soil conditions permit, continue planting fruit trees and bushes. See that your soil is not overly wet or claylike, as it should be friable enough to settle firmly around the new roots. Sometimes I recommend pre-digging the holes (covering them for safety's sake) then tarping the soil to dry it out. The trees or berries can wait -- or heeled in) as they would at the nursery.


When buying bare root fruit trees, try to get real ones, not those wrapped in skimpily plastic tights. Two reasons: roots need to be proportional to the tree. What you get in a bag are root amputees! Some trees like Peach, Cherry or Walnuts have massive root systems that are not easily bagged. Second, these carefree bare rooters are often displayed as to be frost and heat vulnerable. Just feel those bags on a sunny winter day! Do ask about roots! If your nurseryperson cannot answer rootstock questions, find another.

Apricots can be on three different kind of peach root, or two different kinds of plum -- rarely on apricot. Peach forms a larger and more unbaggable root system, and does better in dryer soils than doe’s plum. There are different cherry under stocks as well. All have definite cultural preferences, and size and longevity of the eventual tree are very dependent upon those rootstocks.

It's hard February or March pruning for buddleias and honeysuckles. Prune hydrangeas to just above the place last years growth began. Fertilize with 1 Tbs. (only) of Aluminum sulfate if you want them blue. Lime for Pink. Aluminum sulfate painted on greenhouse tables also deters snails and slugs.

Spray dormant canes, peonies and shrubs as well as fruit trees. Ask about the difference between sulfur spray and copper. Some trees and shrubs are very particular! Apply wood ashes to your roses and to your fruit trees. Poly-tunnel strawberries, or cover with reemay cloth for earlier harvests.

(C) Herb Senft