Landscape Plants: Making It Through Winter

Just as summer is ending, winter is also fast approaching. That only means that it’s also time to start preparing your beautiful landscapes for the cold winter months ahead. But the question now is how to keep landscape plants as fresh until the very first snowfall? Here’s how to make it through winter:

The first thing you may opt to do is to get rid of any decaying matters such as fruits, leaves, twigs and so on and so forth. The idea there is that it is actually the best way to start up the preparation. It’s not really necessary to throw all of those collected rubbish in the garbage bean for you can actually use them as fertilizer when they completely decompose. It’s still fall so the landscape plants can still be able to absorb all the nutrients from the decomposing matters thus boosting them internally.

Weeding is as well necessary during fall when the temperature is gradually going down before winter. Unwanted weeds are best controlled during the cold seasons because they grow slower. This is also the most perfect time to apply herbicides for the weeds for the soil can easily absorb them. Therefore, the entirety of your landscapes will still look as fresh.

Next thing to do is to loosen up the soil and put some amount of fertilizer on it. This will maximize the plants’ tolerance against low temperature. Just like the weeds, any plants in your landscape tend to grow slower than they usually do. However, the roots will continually grow downwards.

Making it through winter will also be a lot easier if you are able to separate those delicate plants from those which are less sensitive to extremities: extreme coldness and hotness. As you may already know, there are some plants which can survive very high and very low temperatures. On the other hand, there are also some which are not highly adoptable with the sudden transitions with the weather.

Aside from separating the plants, storing them is also something that has to be emphasized. Actually, it’s not that really necessary for you to bring all those plants inside your home. You can just put them on the corner where the plants are not being directed to extreme coldness. Let each plant stay close from one another so there will be no more effort to do to cover them. Speaking of covering the plants, it’s not at all necessary to keep them covered all throughout the winter for they might just die on the later end.

After covering the plants with a plastic material, you can also include some source of light to keep the landscape plants warm during the cold evenings. One practical way of doing this is to put some Christmas lights.

For the plants that do not really fit in a container, then you can do mulching instead. Mulch the big plants with dried leaves or anything that will cover the entire lower stem of the plants. Keep in mind though to never over-mulch as this will only prevent the air from entering the roots.

Lastly, all you have to do is to watch the news and keep updated with the weather forecast so you know what to do with the landscape. Making it through the winter will never be a pain on the back once you are prepared.