
Preparing Your Plants for Winter and How to Winterize Your Yard
The start of the fall season is a good time to start winterizing your yard and preparing it for winter. The steps for winterizing a yard can vary depending on the setup of your yard and the weather in your area. This post will cover five landscaping DIY ideas to help you get started on winterizing.
As winter approaches, in preparation for the upcoming cold weather, plants will gradually retain less water. When the water inside of a plant freezes, it expands and turns into ice crystals. However, if plants have excess water, the expansion of these ice crystals can damage the plant's stems and roots. And so plants will naturally decrease their water levels, to prevent this from happening. This freezing process is also what causes leaves to wither and eventually fall off as the weather begins to change. With the arrival of freezing night time temperatures, some plants and trees may even see their leaves wither and dry out overnight.
The winter can be a challenging time for plants and trees, but there are different steps you can take to stay prepared and protect your plants from harsh winter weather.
Protect Trees and Saplings Against Sunscald: Sunscald is a process that occurs when a tree’s trunk is heated by the daytime sun, but then cracks from freezing temperatures that come with night time. Younger trees, like nursery trees or saplings, are often more vulnerable to sunscald since their trunks aren’t as developed yet. Sunscald can cause premature damage for trees, and it can make it easier for pests or disease to harm the trees. In order to protect them, you can use burlap tree wrap, and wrap it around the trunk of the tree to give it more insulation, and help it defend against sunscald.
Insulate and Winterize Garden Beds in Your Yard: There are steps that you can take to winterize garden beds, shrubs, and potted plants as well. Like trees, these plants can also be vulnerable to rapid drops in temperature, and there are steps you can take to protect them. For garden beds, you can add an insulating layer of garden soil mixed with manure or compost. How much of the mixture you need will depend on the size and type of plants you own. Generally speaking, adding 6 to 12 inches of the mixture to your garden beds is likely enough to provide insulation. Factors such as temperature extremes and the cold resistance of your plants will influence how much of the mixture you need. To learn how to get started on making your own compost, check out this guide.
Protecting Plants from Frost and Frost Heave: Frost heave is a damaging process that occurs when uninsulated soil rapidly contracts and expands, causing plant roots to rupture. Shallow rooted plants, such as small flowers, basil, and strawberries, can be vulnerable to frost heave since their roots do not reach as deeply into the ground. Mulching can be a good strategy to prevent frost heave from occurring, since it can provide more insulation. By adding an additional layer of mulch, of approx. 4 to 8 inches, around these plants, you can prevent rapid temperature changes from occurring in your yard’s dirt.
Consider Adding Burlap Wraps for Shrubs: For areas that have particularly harsh or windy winters, it may be necessary to add burlap wraps, secured by wire, to shrubs you want to protect. These wraps can provide an added layer of protection against wind and other harsh weather, by cutting the wind and adding further insulation.
Avoid Fertilizing Late in the Fall Season: Lastly, one more tip for winterizing your yard is to avoid fertilizing late in the fall season. Fertilizer can provide plants with important nutrients and can support new growth, but it might be better (and more economical) to save your fertilizer and wait until the next growing season. Newer growth from plants is generally more vulnerable than the more mature parts of the plant. By stopping fertilization in the late summer or early fall, you can limit the damage to the new, vulnerable growth that occurs with your yard’s plants.
Winterizing your landscape or garden can be a difficult transition to navigate, but the fall can present a good opportunity to start transitioning your yard for the winter season. There are many different steps you can take to protect your plants during the winter season.