Gardening Tips - Winter

Winter Damage

Winter has (finally) spoken! It told your landscape that it's a big, bad world out there and if you're not strong or flexible, you will get plenty of punishment. Let's look at this situation from the ground up. The lawn won't care (as long as you kept the ice-melt and salt off of it). Your perennials also won't care; in fact, the snow is a great insulator. It will protect the roots from the extreme cold. The top growth is now officially finished for the season. Feel free to trim it back (on most varieties). Shrubs, for the most part, didn't suffer much damage. The smaller branch diameters and denser branch structures help prevent damage. Trees took the hit. Trees with leaves took the most damage. Why? More surface area. The snow stuck to the branches and the leaves rather than just having only branches to cling to. This is how a perfectly healthy pear tree can break off at ground level and the dead peach tree next to it is still standing.

So you say you suffered damage? Well, if the damage is very minor, you could try to repair it. Just like a fractured bone, you could splint and/or pin it. It usually won't work. This leaves pruning. You'll want to cut off the broken branch as close to the nearest healthy branch union as possible. If the wound will be larger than a 25¢ piece, then we recommend the use of pruning paint.

Remember: This is now a weak spot, and nature loves to go after the weak and the sick. In this case, tree borers are a threat. A routine of Fertilome Lindane starting in mid-May and running throughout the summer will be needed.

And if this sounds like too much of a project, consider planting a replacement tree. It's tree digging season (weather permitting) meaning that we are in the process of restocking our Balled and Burlapped tree selection.