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Preparing your Garden for Winter! WRITER Adrienne Roethling, Director of Curation & Mission Delivery PHOTO PAUL J. CIENER BOTANICAL GARDENS
Gardeners know that fall is the best time to do most of their yard work. It is time to plant, time to aerate the lawn and also time to winterize the garden. Most plants can be cut back to the ground to let rest for winter while others should be left alone to prevent rot and winter damage. Some plants are a good source of seeds for the birds and some plants seed around the garden too. This article is a quick guide of suggestions on how to treat some herbaceous plants before and after frost has set in. Plants that should not be cut back in fall are woody perennials. These are plants that form a woody stem, but more than likely resprout new shoots close to or at the base of the plant the following spring. A few examples of this are hibiscus, lantana, flowering maples and Mexican sages. It is better to wait until late winter to cut their old stems down be-
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cause they tend to stay green through the fall and early winter. If the stems are still green, they can still take on moisture. If you were to cut the stems while they are green, the cut portion will absorb moisture. If that moisture happens to freeze, stems and roots may rot. The best time to cut back these plants is late February or early March right before the weather turns warmer and right before the new growth appears. Examples of plants that have attractive flower heads to be enjoyed by both humans and the birds are mostly plants in the daisy family. Gold Finches especially love the black eyed Susan and hardy sunflowers throughout the winter months. But other plants such as asters, relatives of the mint family and hardy mums can be cut back to the ground in fall as their stems, flowers and leaves tend to turn brown and often become unsightly. Also,
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these plants have the tendency to seed around and pop up in other areas of the garden. You can prevent that by removing the stems just after flowering. Lastly, ornamental grasses are hit or miss, ornamentally speaking. Some are attractive during the winter months, especially some that are upright such as switch grasses or Panicums. Others tend to flop and can be cut back to about 6” above the ground before winter. If you choose to leave your grasses through the winter months, cut sometime in late February before new growth appears. It is always safe to cut back ornamental grasses to 6” above the ground. In the shade garden, you may want to remove some foliage once frost has set in. There are a lot of plants that can carpet the ground and that can be showy in winter. If you have Italian arums, cyclamens or early spring ephemerals, be sure to remove old hosta leaves or ferns to keep your winter performers free of excess plant debris for viewing. It is easy for spent hosta leaves to cover precious cyclamens. Ferns tend to flop over and become unsightly too. Evergreens in the shade garden or plants that perform well in winter are the hellebores, sacred lilies and hardy asarum. Occasionally, old leaves can be removed from these plants, but there really is no need to cut these plants back to the ground. I recommend going through the shade garden once every 3 to 4 years and perform a mass cleaning of evergreen perennials. Bulbous plants have the ability to
