Re: Winterizing and cutting back etc.
- To:
- Subject: Re: Winterizing and cutting back etc.
- From: M* T*
- Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1999 02:33:00 -0500
Tad late chiming in here - been out of town....
I have humongous amounts of leaves, being basically in the woods, amongst
them a lot of oaks. I get them off paved surfaces and what passes for our
grass, but leave them on the borders unless they are threatening to smother
plants who maintain a green rosette of leaves all winter or are evergreen.
I save my garden clean up for spring, when I will remove spent plant stems
and leaves from the borders that have not started to decay. If they have
started to rot, I leave them to finish the job and feed the soil. I only
cut back perennials that really get on my nerves in fall, otherwise that is
also left until spring. Have found fall too busy a time to do major clean
up, plus many of the oaks I have wait until bud break in spring to dump the
last of their leaves, while kindly throwing down a few all winter, so have
found not much point in trying to get them all up in fall...impossible.
Woodland gardens are not for the really tidy-minded gardener; exercises in
frustration for them:-)
Really there is no 'right' or 'wrong' way to tend your garden. No hard and
fast rules in gardening, despite what writers of lists of "do this now"
would have you believe. After a time, you sort of figure out what works
best on your patch of land and whatever that is...that's the 'right' way
for you to do it.
Lynn, have found that Sedum 'Autumn Joy' will flop (even without the help
of neighboring plants) after two years in place. For some odd reason, this
one wants root disturbance to stand up. Either lift and divide or just run
a spade around the rootball each year and pry it up and set it back. Gets
their attention and makes them stand up:-)
Louise, re: cutting back gray leafed plants. There are just some plants
who resent being cut back in fall and most of those with gray leaves fall
into this. Perhaps because most of them are basically 'evergray'. Cutting
them back can encourage new growth which is then very vulnerable to winter
injury. Even if they do look terribly ratty in fall, it's best to leave
them alone until very early spring, just when they start to wake up and
danger of heavy frost is passed. Then, you can see what has survived
winter and cut back to live growth. I've found with my beloved Artemisia
'Powis Castle' that the early spring prunings root more readily than at any
other time of year...may be true with others in the genus, tho' I haven't
tried any others.
Another factoid is that spent stems and foliage can help protect plant
crowns over winter, so if you have any marginally hardy plants, it's often
best to leave their spent foliage in place until spring clean up, gross
looking or not.
Marge Talt, zone 7 Maryland
mtalt@clark.net
Editor: Gardening in Shade
current article: Subtle Pleasures - Autumn
http://suite101.com/welcome.cfm/222
All garden topics welcome page:
http://suite101.com/category.cfm/gardening
----------
> From: Lynn Lamb <lynnagl@mindspring.com>
> Date: Wednesday, November 17, 1999 11:50 PM
>
> Hello all,
> Looks like we *might* have a winter after all here in my part of
> NC...temps starting to go down at night now after a very warm fall. We
live
> in an old neighborhood filled with oak trees....my first question is, how
do
> most of you feel about leaving the leaves in the beds or do you remove
all
> of them? The leaves I have are oak and dogwood. Also, do you go ahead
and
> cut things down that are looking raggedy or just let them die all the way
to
> the ground by themselves? I know everyone does their own garden their
own
> way, but I always wonder every fall which is the right way to go?
>
> TIA,
> Lynn
> Zone 7b
> Belmont, NC
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@mallorn.com with the
> message text UNSUBSCRIBE PERENNIALS
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@mallorn.com with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE PERENNIALS
