In The Garden Prepping for Winter Our growing season is short but intense. As winter approaches, we’re often hit equally with the urgency to get our garden chores done before the snow flies and with a sense of relief that it will soon be over and we can put our feet up. In many ways, our plants look after themselves. The progressively cooler fall temperatures combined with longer nights signal plants to ‘shut down’ for winter. But gardeners can help to ensure the success of this annual passage from one season
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to another. Getting ready for winter generally revolves around planting hardy bulbs for next year’s bloom, thorough irrigation and the preparation of lawns, perennial flowers, the vegetable patch and annual flower beds. It’s also a time to give semihardy plants a bit of extra protection. Here are some suggestions. Hardy Bulbs Fall is the time to plant bulbs for next year’s blooms. Purchase and plant them
as soon as they become available from stores, garden centres or specialty catalogues. Select bulbs that are large, firm and free of mold, wounds or injury. Larger bulbs produce more vigorous plants with more flowers. You get what you pay for. Most bulbs require full sun in well drained soil. Their planting depth varies with the size of the bulb. A rule of thumb: plant a bulb three times as deep as its height. A bulb two inches high should be planted so that its base
by: Sara Williams
is six inches deep, with the pointy end up. For a natural appearance, place similar varieties in groupings of three to five bulbs. A word of warning: Not all bulbs sold on the prairies will make it through our winters. Crocus, narcissus, hyacinths, paperwhites and daffodils are seldom reliably hardy here. The following tulips should last several years: ‘Apeldoorn’, ‘Beauty of Apeldoorn’, ‘Golden Apeldoorn’, ‘Golden Oxford’, ‘Parade’, ‘Pink Impression’, ‘Orange Emperor’, ‘Pink
