Here’s an interesting little factoid: what do typhoons have to do with cherry blossoms? More than you think! The world-famous cherry blossoms in Japan bring millions of tourists to see the breath-taking spectacle every spring. But guess what, some brave and confused cherry trees were budding recently! Why? The typhoons from this past summer have caused the trees to lose their leaves, and that gets a hormone going in the trees to produce buds. This is normally present in the spring when there are no leaves on the trees, not now. But from what I have heard, there aren’t that many trees bringing forth their blooms, so the blossom bounty should still be okay next spring! What an awe-inspiring sight it must be!
From Japan to the prairies. The weather has gone into fall-winter mode, that’s for sure. But if you have some shrubs or tender perennials to protect for the winter, it is still too early to do that. The cozy environment that surrounds a protected shrub from this early in the season may fool it into thinking that “hey, this weather isn’t so bad!” and slow it from the process of going dormant. Then, when the weather really turns cold, quickly and dramatically, the plant will be ill-prepared and will suffer for it. When to wrap or protect these tender plants? We have to play it by ear and see when the temperatures begin to really go down and stay down; likely in a couple weeks.
But we can do some of the prep work now. At this time you can pound stakes around the plant, in preparation of wrapping the burlap around the plant in a couple weeks. Just remember that you are trying to form a protective layer around the plant to stop the wind from whipping around it, and also create a layer of insulation from the cold. If you are wrapping cedars, the burlap helps protect the cedar from wind burn and dehydration through its leaves.
If you feel that your plant needs more protection, you may want to form a cardboard barrier around it, using a box. This is more rigid and the cardboard is a good insulator. You could even combine this with the burlap method. Be sure the cardboard securely surrounds the plant; if you have saved some leaves from your yard clean up, you can fill the cavity with dry leaves. At that point, seal the top by closing the flaps or taping a cardboard cover in place, and you’re all set! We do this method with Mom’s special tree peony. That plant is very precious to us, it is a living memento of Mom’s beautiful yard. So we use burlap, leaves and cardboard, just to be sure it’s cozy for the winter!
If you have a rose garden, and depending on how much snow has fallen by the time you read this, you can still push the snow aside, mound some soil over the crown, then replace the layer of snow. Don’t trim any stems now.
And don’t overlook one other excellent insulator: snow! Last year we didn’t have a chance to cover some plants, so once the snow came we mounded as much as we could over the various plants, and continued to do so with each snowfall till there was a substantial pile of snow over top of each. In spite of extreme cold they made it just fine.
The next meeting of the Yorkton and District Horticultural Society is our “members and invited guests only” AGM. Call Liz for details, members. This marks the end of the gardener’s year for us, and is the time we look ahead and will soon start making plans for next year’s interesting program! Visit us at www.yorktonhort.ca to see what’s coming up! Have a great week!
