When is the best time to cover those borderline plants that will stay in the ground? I have most of my leaves bagged up that aren't going directly into the compost bin and most of my salvias except for the greggiis and reptans have been frosted. Another frost tonight with rain and snow mix with more precip the rest of this week but we could get back into the low 50's by the end of the week end or first of next week. We could get quite a measure of snowfall before the ground finally freezes. In fact according to the Old Farmers' Almanac we could get our first snow storm around Thanksgiving.

Penny
Niagara Falls, NY
USDA zone 6a/6b
Heat zone 4
Sunset zone 39

I may not cover anything, could probably stand for some things to get knocked down. I am going to bring in about 8 pots of dwarf red vervain and a couple of fuchsias.

Joan Garvey - Metairie, LA Zone 9

Penny

I dont have many leaves so I dug up some of my inground cupheas and black and blues that are out in the open that never live and potted them in black bags and try that test to see if they survive in my garage. Nothing to lose in that trial. It appears most of my garden has gone dormant and soon will cover those with plastic sheeting.

Steve
Martinsville, In
Heat zone 6
Sunset zone 35

Not yet, covering them with warm weather ahead might make them grow and that in turn could kill them.

Ward

Why is that. How warm would it have to be to make them grow again even covered and why would that process kill the plant.

Steve
Martinsville, In
Heat zone 6
Sunset zone 35

Penny, Interesting question about when to mulch. I'm always wondering about this too.

Everything I've read for our 'changeable climate' said mulch (such as chopped leaves) should be put down in the garden before the first big snow but after the first 'killing' frost that will chill the soil enough to put the perennials into sleep/dormancy.

The idea is not to do it too early and not to do it too late; so, it looks like constant checking of the 10-day weather forecast is what it takes to get it right. And it's pretty much your call!

I am going to put off mulching in our perennial garden until Thanksgiving. In the mean time we are collecting all the chopped leaves we can find to make a bigger garden, too. Hate to see them wasted!

FYI Here's the Cornell Extension Garden 'to do' list for November: http://www.ccealleganycattaraugus.org/index.php/gardening-guide

I still have bearded iris, allysum, pansies, verbenas, etc. blooming. All in a range of purples and it's rather charming with the wine colored leaves. And I saw 3 butterflies today, too. So still too early here for mulch.


Judy in Zone 6a
Cincinnati (Anderson Twp.)
Southwest Ohio

You all brought up some good points. Basically I know it is still too early but then again what will I do if we get snow before the surface soil freezes? Looking at the Alamanac it looks like we could have quite a bit of up and down temps this winter. I do have a few cones that I will be able to put over plants to give them some protection whether there is snow on the ground or not. I guess I will just have to keep watching that long term forecast.

I would still like to hear other's inputs too.

Joan, If I were you I probably wouldn't be worried about covering inground plants either. Every fall I keep reminding myself that I need to move back down south so I don't have to go through this every year.

Penny
Niagara Falls, NY
USDA zone 6a/6b
Heat zone 4
Sunset zone 39

Penny, thanks for starting this thread.

I have a related question. I want to over-winter some B&B's, Cupheas, Salvia Mesa's, Involucrata, Dicliptera etc in the garage. However, all these plants are still blooming like crazy in their pots. When do I cut them down and bag them in black trash bags? Can I wait for the frost to kill the blooms and then do it? I don't have the heart to take them down now. Also, I have the faint hope that a Rufous may stop by and want to have them around to catch it's eye.

Suchie

From the posts on this thread it appears there is no clear cut answer to when and how to deal with this problem for those of us that want to try and save and best use what we have. Apears to be a lot of guesstimation involved. Im trying to learn and understand exactly when to know if a plant is in dormancy and how to keep it there safely and when is it too late , as say an early snow around thanksgiving is it then too late to try a save plants. In surveying my plants today I still have a lot of green leaves even though there is a lot of blackened leaves but hanging on, but no blooms on my salvias. I guess the one answer I would like to know is when is it too late and when that happens it would be too late so I dont want to wait that long. IM sure by this time I am talking in circles and not making much sense,, sure would be nice if someone could come up with something to go by for all of us,, especially those of us in colder winter climates. If and when the ground is frozen is it then time or is it too late, my ground is still soft so where do I go from here. I know, so many questions and no perfect answers.

Steve
Martinsville, In
Heat zone 6
Sunset zone 35

Steve
In the past I have brought my salvias that I wanted to keep going inside. Usually they were in pots so that was a no brainer. I knew they wouldn't survive outside in pots over the winter. The stuff in the ground I just didn't bother with other than let whatever leaves were in the area accumulate which wasn't really enough to help or harm. so mulching, covering protecting what is left in the ground is going to be more of an experiment since I have just about run out of space for anything else inside. In my estimation, when the temps stay consistantly in the freezing range and the plants have lost all their leaves and look dead, they are dormant. If you were to dig them up at that point and warm them up they would probably start growing again. In most cases except for the tenderest of plants, they aren't going to die right away and those like the Salvia guaraniticas can actually take temps down to about 20 or 25 degrees (maybe a little colder) before they croak especially if they have good drainage. So a lot depends on how much cold your plants can actually take. I just want to make sure I am able to protect them before I have to go out and wade through a foot of snow.

Penny
Niagara Falls, NY
USDA zone 6a/6b
Heat zone 4
Sunset zone 39

I think it's a regional guessing game we play with Mother Nature each year. My plan is to watch the local forecast for our first freeze warning, then hustle to get everything I want to overwinter inside my garage. Then, after the killing frost I plan to add a good layer of compost/mulched leaves to all my garden beds, their winter blanket.

I still have salvia, cupheas, fuchsias, cannas, Turk's cap and others blooming. Even though I haven't a chance of seeing any more hummers, I still check the David Verity numerous times a day. So hard to give up the habit of hoping for a sighting.

Susan
zone 6a South St. Louis County, MO

How deep a mulch is needed for plants on the edge of a zone? Is 6 inches adequate? Is 3 inches compacted enough? I am using leaves as a base and than I think evergreen branches that need to be cut off our neighbors trees on our side of the fence. I have a bed with some zone 7 plants that are in a raised bed.

How's it sound?

Pam NJ 6B

For woody plants like Salvia greggii I would use a five or six inch layer of hardwood bark. Fall leaves mat down and keep the soil saturated but the bark will drains well. The most important winterizing I do on greggii is getting some fresh stems layered in the summer. Often the younger layered stems are all the returns. I am beginning to think the best thing to do with Agastache is nothing, or at most an inch or two of bark. In my zone I don't mulch herbacious sages at all and I expect about 75% of them to return. If I was further north I would adopt Don's method putting down a sheet of plastic and covering it with a thick pile of bagged leaves or perhaps bales of hay.

Pam,
I tried the branches one year with leaves and it didn't work for me. Hopefully you will have better luck .

I also don't do anything for my agastaches. I do have a couple that were reseeders in a small area filled with pea gravel Those continue to come up year after year but the rest of my agastaches are out there sink or swim.

Steve
There really are no cut and dry answers. I think that a lot depends on the soil, the type of plants for starters. If I had sandy loam in all my beds I would have much better chance of survival than I do with clay soil even though a lot of it has been heavily amended. I wouldn't consider trying to overwinter a cuphea in the ground nor a salvia subrotunda but a greggii and a guaranitica and darcyii all are fair game. If I had an attached garage, sun room or basement I would be able to bring more inside but since I am basically working with one wall in one room and a few small window sills, many of my plants are at the mercy of Mother Nature so I do have to take protective measures.

Penny
Niagara Falls, NY
USDA zone 6a/6b
Heat zone 4
Sunset zone 39

Thank goodness for my pals on this forum, tomorrow I'll search for a CHEAP hardwood bark source and use the leaves in the compost pile for spring. Sometimes I don't know what I'm thinking of, of course the leaves would hold moisture in the Greggi bed and that could be disastrous. Honestly, my mind is elsewhere lately... Tomorrow I'll call our township and see whats available. My back ain't what it was earlier this year, but I guess I have no choice but to shovel bark.

Thanks guys!

Pam NJ 6B

You will love every minute of it Pam. And that reminds me that Palmyra hasn't come up with mulch for most of the bush sages. There are better than 100 plants at risk. Then again, most of them came through last winter, which was a bad one. If you get blasted you can always be the test subject for some of the new hybrids whose cuttings are rooting in the basement. And a couple of the older hybrids from a few years ago are also proving to be very tough.

Wow! This is one very helpfull thread and a great forum for those who care. A constantly learning and experimenting wealth of knowledge for everyone to use as best they can. Why ? Why do we do it. All for our love of hummingbirds, all for the plants that will attract them to our yards. All for how we can save and preserve and make better a habitat that they will want to live in and breed and raise their young in for a few months a year. Then they will leave us for a while and we have to say goodbye for a while. But we can feel good in the fact we have done what we can to make things better for them while they are here and better for us. Why , because we love them so,, ah hummingbirds!!

Steve
Martinsville, In
Heat zone 6
Sunset zone 35

From the Cornell Extension article linked above, it's interesting that they mention 3 -4 inces of 'straw' as an excellent winter mulch on the garden. But whatever mulch is used, they recommend pulling it away from the base of the plant to avoid disease and rot. They go on to say if you use leaves (as I do) that you should first run over them with your mower to chop them up nicely. Some good tips, I think.

(I guess I assumed in areas that receive a winter blanket of snow, that that is enough insulation and mulch is not particularly needed. It looks like that's not quite correct...?)

Another thing I'm trying~~ I'm going to bury some of my pots of HB plants wrapped in plastic (to keep the critters out) in a huge pile of chopped leaves, hoping to insulate them that way. (No more room in the garage!)

We don't get a lot a snow here in southern Ohio and our perennials are subject to lots of heaving due to the changeable weather, hence the reason for winter mulching here.



Judy in Zone 6a
Cincinnati (Anderson Twp.)
Southwest Ohio