Posts Tagged Winterizing
Winter Gardening: How to Maintain a Healthy Garden during Winter
Winter can be a rough time for your garden. From heavy snow to frost forming on the soil, it might seem as if all odds are against your garden. The good thing is that growing a healthy garden during winter is easy as long as you know your way around during winter gardening. If you manage to keep your garden healthy throughout winter, the chances are that it will look even better when spring arrives.
Here are a few insights for caring for your garden throughout winter:
Water Wisely
You need to be careful with the time you water your garden during winter. If you water during the extra cold times of the day, the water might freeze, leading to frost damage. The best time to water your plants would be during the warm times of the day. Since plants tend to absorb water slower during the winter days, and the warmth helps ensure that it flows efficiently through the plant’s system.
Mulch Your Garden
Mulch can not only help to preserve the warmth of the soil but also keeping weeds away. By improving the warmth of the soil, you increase the pace at which water can be absorbed by the plants. It might be wise to use leaves to create mulch, especially after you let them rot since leaf mold discourages the development of weeds. Collect some fallen leaves and layer them over the soil.
Introduce Microclimates into Your Winter Gardening
During winter, you want your garden plants to receive sunlight, but not the cold. This is something that creating a microclimate can help you with. Ideally, this involves creating a greenhouse effect on a smaller scale, and using cold frames can be useful. This will require you to house your garden under a transparent material that will let in some sunlight, but it is hard enough to keep the cold temperature out. Of course, you can always keep these materials away during the hotter months.
Remove Unhealthy Plants
If left to reside alongside the rest of your plants, unhealthy plants can easily spread pests, fungi, and diseases to the rest of your garden. This is the last thing you want for your garden during winter. Get rid of the spent plants. As for any plant that is finished, but is disease-free, uproot it and bury it in your garden. Doing so will revolutionize your winter gardening by introducing organic matter to the soil and improving its general health.
Winter gardening requires a little bit more effort and attention to detail. Show your plants some love during this time, and you can expect them to blossom during the warmer months. Consider the winter gardening tips above to improve the health of your entire garden. Contact us for more gardening tips.
Lawn Tricks and Treats for Winter Survival
When you think lawn care, spring may be the first thing that comes to mind, but the fact is back-to-school is perhaps an even better time to treat your lawn to some TLC.
October is no trick when it comes to setting up your lawn for better survival over the winter. And the treat, if done correctly, means a greener and healthier lawn next Spring for any lawn treatment done in October. Lawn care treatments are best done before soil temperatures drop to a level where your lawn is going into hibernation. are of particular. And seeding and fertilizations of any kind are more sensitive to warmer soils for maximum results in the fall. Here are some tips to follow for luscious lawn come spring:
Fertilizing
Natural and organic fertilizers also work best in warmer soils when micro-organisms are growing and can help breakdown the material into a useable form for your turf grass. By contrast, synthetic fertilizers are already in a more useable form and can be used later into the season as soils cool down. The cautionary note of using fertilizers too late in the season if theground is frozen or very cold means not really achieving any benefit to the lawn and the possibility of runoff into streams, rivers, and other undesirable areas.
Core Aeration and Lime
Over time your soil naturally becomes compacted and builds up acidity, leaving the subsoil undesirable for healthy lawn growth. Walking, playing, mowing and watering compacts the grass and reduce the air space necessary for root growth. Highly acidic soil will hinder the growth of a full, thriving lawn and will therefore promote weed growth. Combat compaction and aid in weed control with a core aeration and lime application.
Seeding
Seeding your lawn in early October can give you a beautiful, green lawn this winter. It is especially a smart option when facing a mixed stand lawn or patch stand of grasses. This will help hide and even the uniformity of the lawn. As the trees grow larger and produce more shade, the bermuda lawns start thinning out and the ryegrass can provide some much needed cover in those areas.
Winterizing
Remove piles of leaves on your lawn, especially on thin, shaded, or new grass areas, as they will act as mulch and damage your lawn. As the temperature drops and November approaches, you can actually drop your mowing height down to 2”. Your final cut in November should be 1.5” to help minimize winter damage.
And lastly…
Be patient. We all want the quick fix to a green and lush lawn, but it can take a couple seasons for a lawn to really take hold and fill in. If you are patient, you will be rewarded. Have questions? Email or call us, we at DK Landscaping will talk you through it!
