Relax. Your garden will be fine (mostly)
Yes, it’s an odd winter. No, there’s no reason to panic
Mother Nature, like Santa Claus, provides us with some wonderful things. But unlike the Jolly Old Elf, Mother Nature is a capricious … well, you fill in the word. A tease, perhaps?
Yes, we’ve had mostly a snow-free winter so far (any snow we have had is long, long gone). Yes, we had record high temperatures recently. But don’t bet the rent money that we won’t get snow, hard cold or even an ice storm or blizzard before this winter is through.
And so we gardeners worry. We worry about those bulbs poking up through the ground. We worry about spring-flowering shrubs and trees (think forsythia and magnolia) whose buds are beginning to grow toward opening. On my street, daffodil foliage is poking up and snowdrops are just a couple of warm days away from opening.
We might as well relax. Not because everything will be fine, but because there’s not very much we can do about any of the effects of this winter-that-wasn’t (so far). The fact is that most of the plants in our gardens — including our spring bulbs — will be fine.
There are two issues here: Lack of snow cover and unseasonable warmth.
Lack of snow — which in this part of southern Ontario is not that unusual — means that more warmth and more light is getting to the bulbs underground. The deeper you planted, the less effect that will have on their growing and flowering cycle. Snowdrops, aconites and crocuses are shallowly-planted small bulbs and they’re the bulbs that are most ready (or in some cases past ready) to open.
Relax. Snowdrops will bloom in snow. Crocuses and aconites are still some weeks, or longer, away.
Daffodils, tulips and hyacinths may send up leaf (foliage) tips now, but their leaves are pretty hardy and it will likely be some time (especially given the current colder spell) before buds emerge. If you can cover emerging bulb growth with some evergreen branches or a very light layer of coarse mulch, that may slow down early growth.
Herbaceous perennials (the plants that die back to the ground in the winter and come up again in the spring) like snow cover because it provides insulation against very cold temperatures and dessicating (drying) winter winds. It also helps prevent the heaving that happens when ground freezes, thaws, freezes again, thaws again etc. The heaving exposes the cold-vulnerable plant roots. Evergreen branches (we all should have saved those Christmas tree branches) are a substitute for snow, albeit second-rate. If you see plants that have heaved, use your foot to tamp the plant (and the soil around it) back down.
Now, let’s talk about unseasonable warmth.
Years ago, I was at a garden writers’ event and I mentioned to one of the “experts” there that it had been a very poor season for forsythia flowers. “Oh,” he said. “March 18” (or some other date). He explained that forsythia buds had started to open and then on that date, we had an overnight freeze. That weakened or killed emerging forsythia flowers all over the Golden Horseshoe/Niagara Peninsula area.
That is the risk we take with early flowering shrubs and trees. They set their buds last summer and those buds stay dormant until the warmth of the following spring. But if the warmth comes early, then below-zero temperatures, the long wait may have been in vain.
If your favourite spring flowering woody plant seems to be heading toward an early bloom time, and if a freeze is forecast, and if the shrub/ tree is small enough, you can try throwing a sheet over it to act as a sort of row cover to trap a little warmth around the buds. (Florida orange citrus growers spray their oranges with water when a freeze is expected because water turning into ice releases warmth that can protect the fruit. But the spray has to be
continuously applied all night because if the water starts to evaporate, it steals heat at three times the rate at which freezing releases it. It’s very tricky, so don’t bother.)
The bottom line is that nature prevails. Our gardens will survive, and some parts will thrive, even if a few other things suffer. That’s all part of the joy and anguish of gardening. Plants we weren’t expecting arrive; plants we really care for sometimes die right in front of us. Hakuna matata: Don’t worry about the things you can’t control.
Relax, enjoy what weather you can, and be patient. Your garden will reveal all in due course.
Garden Notes:
■ The Royal Botanical Gardens annual orchid show is set for Feb. 24 and 25. It’s a terrific show of these exotic (but increasingly popular and available) flowers. Noon to 5 p.m. on the Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the Sunday and special time for tripod photography from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. on the Sunday. Orchids will be for sale. www.osrbg.ca
■ Galt Horticultural Society’s 31st annual Dream Garden Conference will is set for Sunday March 3 from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Portuguese Club in Cambridge. The theme is “Hocus Crocus: The Magic of Spring.” Speakers include Sean James, on the English Cottage: A Canadian Approach; Paul Knowles on The Cure for Gardener Disease and Helen Battersby on designing a garden see-through plants. Tickets are $65, which includes breakfast, lunch, vendors, a silent auction, prizes and swag bags and a Galt Horticultural Society membership. No tickets at the door. www.galthort.com then click on “Events.”