Tag: winter

Posted on in Gardening, Surviving Winter

Dressing Plants for Winter

We’re turning on the heat, unpacking our winter sweaters, and looking up our favorite soup recipes. And if we’re gardeners, we may be figuring out the best way to protect our plants for winter. Lately I’ve been seeing ads for rose collars and burlap wraps. Should I buy some?

Many hybrid roses are grafted onto rootstocks bred for hardiness, not pretty flowers. It’s imperative to protect that graft union in very cold weather. If the top half of the plant dies, the roots will send up shoots next spring—we won’t be aware that anything is wrong until our petite pink rose suddenly grows into a huge sprawling shrub with ugly white flowers.

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Posted on in Gardening, Landscaping, Surviving Winter

Snowy Blankets

Snow-covered yard_NSFT_COS_LAH_9309We have a lot of snow in our front yard. It may not seem like much to those who live in Minnesota, upstate New York, or Maine, but for us here along the Front Range of the Rockies, it’s a lot of snow. Colorado is dry. Colorado is sunny. We don’t get all that much snow, and what we do get melts the next day. The “real” snow is supposed to stay up on the ski slopes, not in our front yards.

When we picked out a lot for our new house, we were thinking about a longer growing season from our south-facing backyard, the spectacular view of Pikes Peak out the living room picture windows, the warmth of sunshine filling our bedroom. We carefully oriented our house to take advantage of all these.

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Posted on in Bird Profiles, Birds

Welcoming Juncos

dark-eyed-junco_lavetaco_20100320_lah_0458nefI just added bird #19 to my yard list. That may not sound like very many, but we only moved into our new house in May, and we had no landscaping until August. Birds are rarely attracted to bare dirt!

Not surprisingly, #19 was a Dark-eyed Junco. Vertical migrants, Juncos spend the summer up in the mountains, nesting in the conifers, and descend to lower elevations for the winter. At 7,100 feet , our house barely qualifies as a lower elevation; the park up the road, a mere 200 feet higher, hosts juncos all year.

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Posted on in Botany for Gardeners

White Frost, Green Leaves

Rime on trees_BlkForest_20091011_LAH_3876We’ve been enjoying some glorious autumn foliage these past few weeks, but there are plenty of plants that remain stubbornly green. In fact, their leaves stay green no matter what the season—that’s why we call them evergreens. With winter just around the corner, I began to wonder—how do evergreens survive our cold winters? Why don’t they lose their leaves?

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Posted on in Birding Trips, Birds, Hotspots

“Ding” Darling Dreams

White Pelicans_DingDarlingNWR-FL_LAH_6696_filtered-001What do you do when you can’t go birding? After 21 years in the same house, my husband and I are moving. The goal is a smaller house, less upkeep, and more time for birds and photography. But in order to reach that goal, we have a lot of sorting and selling and donating to do. So, instead of strolling down the trail looking for winter songbirds, or driving across the prairies looking for raptors, I’m prowling around the house trying to find an object that will fit perfectly in that space left in the moving box I’m filling.

Trust me, it’s nowhere as much fun.

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Posted on in Public gardens, Surviving Winter

Winter in the Gardens

DBG_LAH_3996-001Dead leaves, bare branches, brown grass. It’s hard to create a landscape that looks attractive when everything appears to be dead. Yet, we live in a place where winter can last six months, or more. I want my yard to be attractive all the time, not just during the growing season.

With that in mind, this week I paid a visit to the Denver Botanic Gardens. They’re open in every season, so surely they’ll have ideas for making a garden worth visiting, even in the winter. How do they do it?

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Posted on in Birds

Brrry Birrrds

American Robin_1208As temperatures dipped into the negative numbers last week, I started wondering—how do wild birds, some no bigger than my fist, manage to stay warm in such frigid conditions? Of course, some bird avoid the problem by migrating, but plenty of birds winter right here in Colorado. I already knew that birds eat more when the weather is cold; my need to constantly refill the bird feeder is proof enough. The suet feeder, with all that high-calorie fat, empties even faster. But could a higher metabolism be enough to carry such seemingly fragile puffballs through a Colorado winter? I decided to find out.

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Posted on in Gardening, Landscaping

Is It Dead?

Malus x scheideckeri 'Red Jade'_Crabapple_DBG-CO_LAH_4099-001Congratulations! We just survived one of the coldest winters in recent history. Spring has finally arrived, even here at 7,000 feet. Bulbs are blooming, trees are budding, and there’s a bit of green in the dead grass. As my perennials finally begin to sprout, I’ve been busy clearing off the dead stems and dried seed heads. One by one, they return to life, and I mentally take attendance. Catmint? Here! Blue Mist Spirea? Here! Ornamental Sage? Hello? Has anyone seen Sage lately?

Yes, some of my favorite plants are no-shows. Others, such as the Blue Mist Spirea, are producing leaves from the base of the plant, but the stems are still bare and lifeless. As I check on the woody plants in my garden, I notice that not all my shrubs are leafing out as expected. Should I cut them down? Dig them out? Or am I just too impatient? How can I tell if there’s still life left in those limbs? (more…)

Posted on in Gardening, Surviving Winter

A Blanket for Your Garden

Snow at home_LAH_762As I write this, the sky is a brilliant blue, the sun is shining, and the thermometer in my garden reads a pleasant 55 degrees. However, only two weeks ago my plants were subjected to a frigid minus 17, and tomorrow’s high is supposed to barely pass freezing. It’s only February, with plenty of winter yet to come. Sometimes I wonder, how do my shrubs and perennials manage to survive such extremes?

In most years, the parts of the country that experience arctic temperatures also have a significant amount of snow. While we think of snow as very cold, it actually acts as an insulating blanket in our gardens, keeping the soil temperature relatively stable—often not much lower than 32. Then, during warm spells, such as we’re experiencing this week, that snow keeps the ground frozen. Plants stay dormant, and the roots stay buried.

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