Winter Gardening

The real season to get stuff done

Winter Gardening

The other day a friend asked me how I occupied myself during the winter, when I couldn’t garden. I laughed and said that most of my gardening tasks happen when the weather is cold. In Spring there are lots of things to do, in Summer we enjoy the blooms and fruits of our labors, but in the Fall and Winter, we get the dig up plants and move them, play in our compost piles and plant bulbs and other plants. We do hard pruning and deep weeding in cold months, because there aren’t full green plants in our way. We can till and turn our flower beds, add manure and other additives to the soil, so they have time to percolate and enrich over the Winter.

We can shape large shrubs so in the Spring they can give a showy display of blooms. I’ll caution you not to prune lilacs in winter, because their Spring blooms are already set. Wait to prune those after they bloom in early Spring. I say this, but last year I didn’t prune my lilac at all and it was glorious. I have a weeping golden crabapple that now only bears the winter fruit. The larger birds feed on this fruit when there are no bugs or other food for them. The little tree also has some small wind chimes and a suet basket (wired shut to keep the pesky squirrels from trashing it), so the finches flit about its branches endlessly.

Pruning butterfly bush (buddleia) now works, and you can cut them back to the ground, if need be. They’ll come back. The same goes for Russian Sage.

I have a very shady flower bed off the back patio that is full of chipped bark ground cover. I didn’t have time to remove it before I transplanted my gardens when I moved in, so now that it’s cold I can rake all those wood chips out and replace them with new bedding soil, compost and manure. Once I get those beds in good shape I’ll plant daffodils, lilies, iris and other bulbs and tubers for next Spring. I’ve planted crocus and hyacinths there, so I can see those harbingers of Spring from my kitchen. I’ve already planted Sweet Woodruff, eucheria (coral bells), and violas there and next year they’ll add color and texture in those shady places. Update: The apple tree that kept these beds shady has been removed. It was old and very diseased. Now there is wonderful sunshine on beds that were once mostly idle. Well, nothing in my yard is completely idle. There is a clematis on a trellis that never fails to bloom. Sweet Woodruff, Lily of the Valley, Speedwell (veronica), crocus, bluet, and daylilies cover that not-great soil.

Winter is also a good time to till around and in between established plants to de-thatch those roots. You can even lift big clumps of lilies or iris or daises to loosen the soil that has compacted over time. This would be a good time to separate big clumps of those plants, if they’re overgrown. Give the rest to friends or donate them to public parks.

Voles are constant, but disturbing their tunnels helps keep the for doing significant damage.

Winter is an excellent time to deal with bugs like snails and other pests. By turning the soil, you disturb nests (think spiders and earwigs); you break up colonies and nests of eggs. For snails, I use diatomateous earth directly on the ground, especially in the areas where I’ve found shells and slime. This disrupts their digestive tracks, but won’t harm humans or pets. It’s actually good for the soil, too.

I’m just a gardener, and I don’t know all of the technical names or processes of professional horticulturists. But I do know that my methods are better than pesticides, herbicides, and other harsh chemicals.

These cold months also afford us the opportunity to cut back heavy vines like trumpet vine, wisteria, honeysuckle and Virginia Creeper. I have trumpet vine growing up in my plum tree, so when the leaves are gone, I’m going to whack that thing back and gain more sunlight to the flower beds below. I might whack some of the branches of that tree, while I’m up there. If you have evergreens, like cedar, spruce and fir trees, wait until the holidays to prune those and use the lopped branches to decorate your house! Pyracantha berries and bent twig wreaths are so much prettier with fresh cedar boughs intertwined. Plus, the smell is wonderful.

Have a wonderful holiday…happy gardening!