Sunday, October 11, 2009

Winter in October - Putting Our Gardens To Bed


Is it Fall or Winter?
In My Garden, Is it Fall or Winter?
Today has been the third day of snow.  It  has come early here in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  But, after a few days we will have lovely fall weather. We always do.  This is a perfect time to put our gardens "to bed"  Last week we had Rick Abrahamson, County Extension Educator-Horticulture with the Cooperative Extension Service present a program entitled "Putting our Garden to Bed".   Here is some advice I learned from Rick's program:    This is a great time to move and divide most perennials, to divide Iris, to plant bulbs and to plant trees. 

About tree planting: Rick taught us that it is very important to plant a tree in a hole that is two to three times the width of the root ball and the same depth of the root ball. When planting your tree, locate the main root, you may have to dig around the top of the root ball to find it,  and plant the tree so that this main root is an inch under the soil.  The reason for this advice is that the grower might have planted the tree root ball  a bit deep in the  pot.  After planting your new tree, apply three to four inches of mulch.  Please no fall pruning, unless you need to prune a broken or diseased limb.  The best time to prune is in the winter when the tree is dormant.   

About mulching our gardens.  The purpose of mulch in the winter is not to keep the ground from freezing. It is going to freeze.  One purpose is to keep your sleeping plants sleeping, so that during a warm spell in the winter they are not fooled into waking up.   Have you ever had tulips wake up before their time, only to be nipped by winter?  The best time to apply winter mulch is after the soil has frozen. 

Another great reminder Rick shared with us is that before winter causes  the soil to freeze, we  need to continue to regularly water our shrubs and trees as needed.  This will help prevent winter burn, especially on our evergreens.    Sweet dream to our sweet gardens!

12 comments:

  1. What an amazing picture! It looks like you painted that tree into the picture. It is hard to believe we have SNOW! All the leaves are on the trees still....very strange. Love your blog post....very informative.

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  2. Hello Gloria,

    I came across your blog on Blotanical.

    I am so glad you have joined since there are not too many bloggers from the Dakotas and I am interested in how you garden in that area (I am from Arizona).

    I love to see how people grow gardens in different parts of the country. I look forward to following your blog.

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  3. Thanks for the link to your blog. Wow, snow for 3 days now, hope it melts soon and you can enjoy Fall weather. I see some delicious recipes that I will have to try. Have a great day.

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  4. 3 days of snow! yikes...and I'm whining about 90 degree temps, guess I'll just shut up. Nice to see ya on Blotanical, I'll be back.
    Scott

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  5. Wow, I can't believe you've had all that snow - and meanwhile we're basking in late autumn sunshine!

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  6. Wow -snow. And up to two days ago we were still in T-shirts. But even here the temperature has dropped - winter's not far away.
    Found you through Blotanical. Hope you enjoy it there and we see you around a lot.

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  7. Oh, this is the first time I'm seeing snow falling on autumn leaves! How beautiful the scenery is. I'm really enjoying your winters, without having to go through the coldness.

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  8. Hi Gloria, wow-snow is the last thing I look forward to right now! Hope it goes by quickly and you can return to your 'typical' fall! I have friends that live in South Dakota--we know them from our time in Germany, when my husband was in the Army (from 1985-1990, we lived in Heidelberg). I haven't talked to them for about 2 years now--but after seeing your snow, I'm tempted to drop them an email or a call to see how they're doing! I hope you'll enjoy being part of Blotanical. It seems like you will have a lot of info. to offer with your background and gardening experience. I need all the help I can get! Take care!

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  9. Interesting to know about plants waking up over fake-summer. An almost similar behaviour is shown by zephyr lilies in our garden, invariably wake up with lovely pink and white blooms after a good round of rainfall.... ~bangchik

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  10. Very intersting. I'm learning so much and the tip about mulching is good to know, but how do you know when the ground is frozen?

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  11. SNow!!! Glad you will get a bit more fall after this. Thanks for your information on putting the garden to bed. Very interesting.

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  12. Hi Gloria! I've placed a link to your snowy post on the First Snowfall Project page. Your photo is lovely and your reminders, timely. Thanks so much for participating. I'm finding some wonderful new blogs through the project this year. :)

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