Getting my garden ready for winter

Vinca is tough stuff. I'd rake to loosen up the leaf litter, and then leave a couple inches of loose leaf atop it all. It will be mostly dormant and is a shade plant - so it won't need much or any sun this winter. It also behaves well when you prune the sparse parts back - the leading edge will become more dense. Does that make sense?

A couple inches of loose leaf. OK. Does that mean some green showing through? It was prolly 5 inches of pretty densely packed leaves over it all before I started. I'm trying to figure out if I should put some back -- right now it's mostly green, but plenty of leaves left scattered on top, can't be very precise without ripping up the plants.

It's supposed to be an evergreen in this zone (5b/6a), and I want to take advantage of the green-ness if I can. A mostly green area looks much better than a mostly brown messy area. I looked around the neighborhood today and the vinca seems to be mostly just out there -- lots of leaf blowers around here, gets almost all of the leaves out. Most of 'em seem to be completely unprotected.

One thing I read in my research today though is that you want to do mulch AFTER the first frost -- what you want to do is KEEP the ground frozen rather than letting it go through cycles of freezing and unfreezing. So it's possible they just haven't done whatever they'll do, yet.

When should I prune?

Does most of what we're talking about re: vinca go for ivy, too?

(THANKS again!!!)

Ah! I see. If you want the green to show through, let it. Your vinca should be fine unless you have a very severly unseasonal winter. If the ivy is established (not one you planted this year) and therefore none to be hardy, I'd treat it the same way as the vinca.

If you pull up all the leaves, or even most of them, be sure to mulch ontop of the ivy/vinca in the spring. The leaf litter is part of nature's fertilization process. When you mulch over the plants in early spring, you can kind of rake them up to the surface over the mulch (make sense?).

Prune dead twigs anytime, wait until winter has fully set in to prune any harder than that. And, try to wait until March, at that.

Excellent, yay. I really like how the vinca looks uncovered, and am happy to be able to leave them uncovered.

"Not one you planted this year" reminds me -- -I- didn't plant anything, but because of records they left, (bless 'em), I know the previous homeowners planted some azaleas in late June or so to replace azaleas that had been smooshed by overzealous house painters. (I remember you had a problem with doofus painters smooshing plants, too.) So the azaleas haven't wintered here before. Should I do anything special for them?

The azaleas should be fine. They've had all of the summer and fall to settle themselves in. If the vinca and ivy do get nailed by winter weather, they should return next year from where ever they've rooted (they root their little tendrils here and there).

Shrubs under the eves of the house could get damaged by falling snow. Same with woody plants near where snow will be piled up after shoveling. If you have stiff-branched woody shrubs under the house eves or near the driveway you may want to consider making them some shelter.

New question:

We've had freaky weather -- the ice storm and very very cold (below zero) temps around Christmas, then warmed up abruptly and we've had a couple of weeks of quite warm (50's to 60's) weather. Just got cold again, supposed to stay cold for a while. (It IS mid-January.)

Well, tell that to all of the over-optimistic bulbs popping up everywhere. Grr. The irises are about 4 inches tall already, and there are a bunch of little spikes about 2-3 inches tall that I'm not sure of (maybe daffodils.)

What, if anything, can/ should I do? Is the climate really so much warmer here that they'll be OK? (I'm NOT used to seeing bulbs in January...)

Same happened here, in warm sunny spots.

I don't think you need to worry too much about the hardy bulbs you mentioned. They can take cold weather for extended periods. If you want to be safe, you could get some mulch and bury the growth under a couple inches of it.

Oh, good! I was worried that they were automatic goners.

What would you do?

we usually have all kinds of hardy bulbs putting out green shoots when it gets just a touch mild. i understand that the green shoots allow the bulbs to shed excess moisture and that prevents them from freezing out. forecast calls for minus 25 C (about minus 20 F ?) for mid-week ! arctic high moving towards eastern ontario - YIKES ! hbg

Mulch if you have time and energy.

Every year the January thaw brings some ambitious daffodil sprouts. With or without mulch, some survive, some don't.

If you can't mulch, tell them that you're delighted to make their acquaintance and you'll get to know them better in the spring.

There are 18 more days in the first half of winter.

Personally, I would not mulch. Like Noddy says, some will survive even if others don't. And those that don't survive this year, will probably come back next year.

Mulch, don't mulch....I don't have a garden of my own anymore. Note that I am not at all bitter about it. Not one bit!

Awww, dag.

How about if I appoint you decision-maker for my garden and like send you lots and lots of pics?

I'm still a bit intimidated by it all. At least I haven't ruined anything... yet.

Oh and thanks for the mulch/ don't mulch advice, everyone. What I was most concerned about is that it would just wipe 'em out -- if at worst this years' crop won't be very nice, but next year's will be fine, that's a relief.

Snowing snowing snowing right now!!! Which I imagine might be actually good for them, a bit of insulation (assuming the air temperature is well below freezing.)

This is why I don't rake my miniature front yard. If any bulbs decide to get adventurous, they're unlikely to make it through the leaf litter before it snows again.

Soz, you are right about the snow - it does insulate. In cranberry bogs, if there is an early or late frost that could damage the fruit/flowers/berries, the grower will spray the plants with a fine mist and let them freeze over for their protection.

since we usually get at least a few days of minus 30 C mulching is pretty well a must. i just throw anything lying and flying around in the garden onto the bulb beds, roses etc. while i usually start with some peatmoss, i'll throw on leaves, soil from the flowerpots, broken pieces from the hedge pieces of bark ... i've even used newspaper; it all seems to work. problem is that in the spring when i have to remove all the stuff, the odd flowerstem gets damaged - well, usually there is enough left for a good colour blanket. can't wait, soon i'll be scratching at the frozen soil trying to entice the bulbs to come back up. hbg

We've got several inches of mulch, but the buggers found their way through that. Sigh.

We'll see.

It's a garden - try to think of it as being part of nature. Some stuff is gonna make it, some isn't. There's really nothing in fussing once winter's started.

Snow is the poor man's manure and the lazy man's mulch.

Snow traps air--nitrogen rich air--and as the snow melts the nitrogen is forced down into the soil.