A Simple Guide to Winterizing Your Tress and Shrubs
Just like you prepare your HVAC or car to endure winter, your garden will also benefit from winterizing. Properly winterizing your trees and shrubs will help them survive this season and will ensure the garden produces colorful flowers in the spring. For Coloradan gardeners who love do-it-yourself projects, here is a checklist to winterize your garden.
Insulate Your Small Shrubs & Trees
Insulate your plants to avoid winter-burn by surrounding them with a cylinder of snow fencing and packing shredded leaves or straw inside of it. You can also wrap your plants with burlap to protect them from wind and subsequent moisture loss.
Also, to protect shrubs from snow damage, tie up branches with jute twine.
Remove broken branches by applying a clean cut.
Use tree wrap tape and plastic spiral tree protectors to bark on young trees from suffering from sun scald or crack from fluctuating day and night temperatures.
As an extra shield, you can apply an anti-desiccant onto the shrub’s leaves, at top and bottom, to prevent them from drying out.
Protect the Root System
Spread approximately 4 inches of mulch around newly planted perennials that haven’t had time to develop an extensive root system. For late-season garden additions, wait until the ground has started to freeze to add a thick layer of mulch. The mulch reduces the root injury by helping keep the ground consistently cold or frozen until spring. Also, this material will prevent freeze and thaw cycles in the soil that may cause the earth to heave and uproot new plants.
Check the mulch at the beginning of the year to see if it has thinned out because of winter winds or other reasons and add more mulch if necessary.
Should you have any doubt or need more plant winterizing tips, contact All Around Soil & Stone. Also, if you need to buy mulch or any other landscaping supply in Colorado, our landscaping specialists are here to help.
New Fall/Winter Hours Effective November 1st, 2018
Monday – Saturday 9 am to 4 pm
Sunday – Closed
