"WINTERIZE" MAY BE a
Winterizing the garden is nothing like winterizing the family car, however, for most of the work of garden winterizing can be done by the gardener, at home. Still, a little help from friends is always welcome, just as long as they check with the gardener before beginning work. It helps, if one is to work in the garden, to know what is planted where.
Lilies, easy to destroy, lurk here and there, though there may be little or no foliage above ground to indicate their presence. Slicing them into pieces with a gardening tool does them no good, and uprooting them, unsliced, requires replanting, which is not toil one needs, considering all the other work waiting.
Daffodils, tulips, ornamental onions and other bulbs lie just below the soil surface, hidden and vulnerable to destruction when one is working above them. Naked ladies, which tend to produce massive bulb clumps in a fairly short period of time, are easily disturbed, and cutting through one of those, depending on the place and seriousness of the wound, probably means the lady will not recover.
Other plants, such as Virginia bluebells, whose above-ground foliage disappears shortly after they blossom in the spring, can be easily dispatched unless one is paying attention to where they grow. Bluebells spread and form mats that welcome spring as few other plants can, yet if one tries to plant over them one courts disaster. Clearing away weedy overgrowth and putting down a layer of mulch is about all one can do to their beds, but they need that.
Some plants announce themselves at this time of year, and are easier to deal with than the shy ones that hide underground. British soldiers, Lycoris radiata, are among those. The ones in my garden are truly magnificent this year, an intense red that is most fetching. As do most bulbs, they like to be dry when dormant, and it is probable that the combination of some water last winter, while they were in active growth, and a dry summer has brought out their best, including the depth of their color.
Though the foliage is just beginning to show, it will grow and survive over winter only to disappear early next spring. Its presence after blossoming has reached its peak is a plus for the gardener, since it marks clearly the boundaries of their growth and make weeding and mulching easier.
Sternbergia lutea, with yellow blossoms that resemble a crocus, are out now as well, with foliage that indicates their presence. Hellebores, not yet overly active, are preparing for their show, which generally begins around Christmas. What one sees now is some new growth. Later, flowers will come, and though hellebores, leaves and blossom, may drop to the ground during a bad freeze, both will rise again with sun and better weather.
Their foliage, which is always there, warns the gardener that in whatever work he is doing in their area of the garden, hellebores need to be respected and any work done among them accomplished with great care.
Columbine and larkspur have already begun growth, and need to be carefully worked around. Both reseed wantonly. There is little lost in pulling a few larkspurs, for one will, in spring, still have all the colors one wants.
I have greater respect for the columbines, however, for they tend to hybridize so readily that one never knows what type or color blossom a seedling plant will produce. Only the native reds come true from seed, and I have never had so many of those that I found them to be too familiar. Here and there one finds hollyhock, bleeding heart, foxglove and others starting growth either in the shade of their parents or at some site where wind, birds, squirrels, slugs or the gardener's shoes or tools have deposited them.
Tiger lilies, which produce bulbs underground and bulbils above ground along the stalk, have reached adulthood at several places in the garden. They have long since given up growth, but their dead stalks remain, which makes it easy to dig the bulbs for transplanting to sites where they can continue their annual show without disturbing your garden plan. Tigers don't seem to mind transplanting, and will blossom reliably next year if moved now.
Other plants may have grown so much that one must curb them by division lest they overtake and smother nearby plants. Daylilies are among those, as are goldenrod and a number of the herbs. Since these are normally growing at or near the spot where I want them to grow, I almost never dig an entire clump, but use a gardening spade to divide it, moving overage to another part of the garden or sharing it with friends.
There is still seed to gather. Hyacinth beans continue to blossom and bear. Enough of the purple beans have matured by now to allow picking and drying of far more than one will need next year.
The hardy orange, heavy with fruit, is a handsome thing, but fruit needs to be gathered as it falls, lest the garden become a hardy-orange forest. Each orange is filled with seed, each of which seems eager to produce a tree. They can be cut and composted or brought into the house, where their citrus aroma is welcome.
Foliage must be cut from peonies and disposed of. Passionflower vines must be cut and removed with other yard waste. Crape myrtle, magnolia, heavenly bamboo, aucuba or Japanese laurel, and other plants that seed here and there must be dealt with as winterizing of the garden continues. There is, one can be certain, never a dearth of work in the garden.
TONY P. WRENN of Fredericksburg is a lifelong gardener. He welcomes questions from readers and will try to answer them in his column. Contact him by mail at The Free Lance-Star, 616 Amelia St., Fredericksburg, Va. 22401; by fax at 373-8455; or by e-mail to his attention at
Email: gwoolf@freelancestar.com.
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There is no better time to pile on the mulch than now. As long as one uses material that will not mat and freeze, mulch will act both as a source of organic material and as a blanket. It is difficult to determine which is the more important. Pine needles, straw or hay free of seed, pine bark and fines, oak leaves or ground leaves all make fine mulch. Mounded around the exposed tubers of iris, clumps of daylilies or the bases of hellebores and other plants that show growth above ground, mulch applied now will not only help the plant, but look good as well. NOTE: Though identified as a protea, the plant in the illustration that appeared with last week's column was actually a plumeria or frangipani. |