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 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
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