How To Properly Prepare Summer Cottages For Wintering

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

Winter in Russia is harsh everywhere. Even in its warm side, the garden should be covered, protected from possible frost in winter, ice hail and other natural phenomena. There are simple rules for preparing for wintering, which will help you preserve your shrubs, protecting them from the winter bad weather

Useful Seasonal Tips for Evergreen Shrubs

In order for the ornamental shrubs of your garden to please with their healthy appearance, excellent flowering in the coming spring and summer, they must successfully overwinter. And to prepare for winter, you need such an important summer cottage season for every gardener, like autumn.

Start by watering conifers and other evergreen shrubs with plenty of water. This should be done in late autumn. In winter, the leaves and the conifer itself feed on their roots. And they need moisture, respectively. The frozen ground only appears to be well hydrated. But it does not give such moisture, which is necessary for the roots of this type of trees.

Now you need to move on to caring for the plants in the garden and covering them for the winter. For this:

• the root collar of an ornamental plant seedling in the garden (if the shrub is young) must be covered with bark, also sawdust and shavings;

• the aboveground part of the bushes of shrubs is covered with straw, sack or burlap, covered with spruce branches;

• cover shrubs in the garden at zero air temperature;

• materials covering shrubs at the roots must be breathable.

Some gardeners mistakenly cover ornamental shrubs with foil for the winter. This creates conditions for the development of fungus on shrubs, and also contributes to the appearance of mold on it.

The first wintering for young planted shrubs in the garden is the most important. As the plant overwinters, so it will continue to develop. With proper preparation for the first winter, the root system of the plant will be significantly strengthened, and in subsequent seasons, ornamental shrubs in the garden will not need to be prepared so carefully for winter and sheltered from the cold.

Other nuances of the care of evergreens before the winter period:

• you need to pay attention to the fact that coniferous shrubs can grow in the garden, which are sensitive not so much to frost as to the wind and a large amount of snow falling on their branches;

• cypress shrubs of a columnar shape, junipers for the winter are best tied with ropes so that their branches do not fall apart;

• it is better to tie the crown of evergreen shrubs with twine;

• coming to the dacha in winter, you need to brush off the snow from the bushes in the garden so that the branches do not melt under its layer and gray mold does not appear on them;

• from the fungus, you can treat coniferous trees for the winter with foundation;

• in February and early spring, you need to follow the weather forecasts - when the continuation of frosts is announced, as well as the threat of frost, shrubs need to be covered so that young growths on them are not damaged;

• Sheltering of ornamental coniferous shrubs in the garden for the winter should be done in the period from late October to early November, that is, after a significant cold snap and the approach of winter.

On the features of caring for other ornamental shrubs in the garden

Shrubs that love heat, such as rhododendrons, hibiscus, should be covered for the winter with fallen leaves, spruce branches and non-woven material that would allow air to pass through.

Arriving in the winter at the dacha, from the bushes, which are hedges in the garden, sheared figures, it is imperative to shake off the snow after its abundant fallout. Tie any columnar shrubs with twine.

Deciduous shrubs should also not be covered until the end of October for the winter. Cover it in warm weather - they will hide under layers of covering material. Also, covering the root system of plants should be done in dry, calm weather. Shrubs with brittle shoots are difficult to cover for the winter, but you need to try to do it. But the unpretentious deciduous rhododendrons are quite resistant to frost, especially in the second and subsequent seasons of their wintering. Therefore, they do not need to be unduly covered. Forsythia, actinidia, chubushnik must be carefully covered for the winter.

Also prepare the soil in the garden for wintering. It should be loosened, breathable, without unnecessary weeds that should be pulled out by the roots.

In the spring, treat the bushes with complex fertilizers. Recall that each type of ornamental shrub requires its own fertilizer:

• Potentilla - phosphorus-potassium;

• budlee, deytsie - mineral;

• chubushnik, almonds - with phosphorus and complex;

• boxwood, tamariks - compost, slurry;

• scumpria - compost.

Happy wintering for your garden!