Preparing A Flower Garden For Winter

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Preparing a flower garden for winter is an extremely important and crucial stage both in the work of a gardener and in the life of plants, because winter is a very serious test for them. And only a small number of plants can calmly endure severe frosts without shelter. In this regard, it is extremely important to timely prepare the flower garden for the coming winter

Persistent frosts are a sign that it's time to start digging up gladioli. They always start with early varieties. Having cut off the leaves to their very base, they proceed to digging out plants from the children. Corms are scattered in 1 - 2 layers in any cardboard boxes or suitable boxes and placed for drying in warm rooms (in which the temperature should be 20 - 25 degrees). Two days later, they are transferred to an even warmer place (in which the temperature reaches 35 degrees, even in the immediate vicinity of heating devices) for 6 to 8 days. Further, the bulbs are cleaned and dried for 30 days already at 18 - 20 degrees.

Dahlias begin to dig up only after frost. Having uncooked them, the stems are cut slightly below the hilling level. Further, having dug a small groove, carefully pry the root tubers so that they do not break off, you cannot pull them by the stems. Small roots are cut off from the root tubers cleaned from the ground, and then they are washed with a weak stream of water from a hose and slightly dried. Drying them in a warm place is categorically not recommended - for drying, root tubers are brought into rather cool rooms for 10 - 15 days (with a temperature not exceeding 10 degrees).

The acidander is also dug out. Having cut off its aerial part, the corms are dried for a month (room temperature is best suited for this).

In galtonia, having dug it out, all the stems are cut off, and the bulbs are dried for 5 - 10 days in relatively cool rooms (10 - 12 degrees). They should be placed in cardboard boxes, the top of which should be open.

Having dug up the tuberous begonia and cut off its aerial part, the tubers with roots, together with the ground, are placed in a box in one layer and dried for a month in a rather cool, but not freezing place. The stems of a number of perennials wintering in the ground are also cut to the ground: cornflower, delphinium, scabiosa, aster, monarda, echinacea, peony, bell and others. And in perennials with hibernating leaves (lupine, carnations, pyrethrum and others), faded stems are cut off, while deeply going deep into the outlet. Also, they should cut out the leaves that turned yellow and began to die off, without touching the green leaves.

From mid-October, clematis with roses are being prepared for the shelter. In clematis blooming on the shoots of this year, all the stems are cut off, leaving only a couple of nodes from the soil surface. In varieties blooming on the shoots of previous years, the stems are cut at a distance of 1 m. All the stems of the plant are carefully removed from the supports and, having spread spruce branches, are laid out on the ground. In roses, along with softened ones, unripe shoots should also be cut out - the remaining ones are shortened so that they can fit under the chosen shelter. Leaves showing signs of any disease must be removed. Climbing roses are also removed from the supports and laid on the ground on a spread spruce branch.

Bulbous plants are covered at the end of October, and sometimes even in November, when the ground begins to freeze slightly after the establishment of freezing temperatures. Good cover is required for daffodils (excluding poetry), hyacinths and lilies. These can be sawdust, shavings, or dry leaves prepared in advance, which are poured in a layer of 15 - 20 cm. Then, spruce branches are placed on top with another layer, after which a film is stretched over the entire shelter.

All vegetation overwintering in the ground must be mulched with a layer of 4 - 5 cm. For mulching, humus (leaf or manure), compost or peat, which has had time to weather well, are used. Under each bush of rose and clematis, at least a bucket of humus or compost should be added. Under gladioli with dahlias, you need to add at least a bucket of rather fatty compost (humus is also suitable, of course), and for annual plants, compost is taken for 1 square meter. m. about a bucket, while it must be completely decomposed. And if the soil has not been limed even once in the last 2 - 3 years, up to 300 g of lime and ordinary superphosphate per 1 square meter of 50 - 100 g should be additionally added. and at least 30 cm - for perennials.

The areas designated specifically for certain crops and not occupied by vegetation also need to be processed: fill them with high-quality fertilizers, and then produce lime. In peat soils, it will not be superfluous to add clay with sand, in light sandy soils - clay with peat, and in heavy clay soils - peat with sand. In conclusion, the soil is dug as deeply as possible (turnover of the earth is obligatory in this case) and left in the form of large lumps for the winter.