Lots of talk on the media these days about continuing to get our gardens ready for winter.  Here in Albany, starting to feel like winter is just around the corner: colder, blustery, and gray.

One thing I heard on tv the other day was how the speaker always planted his spring bulbs to work off his Thanksgiving dinner.  I thought this was a wonderful idea!

We discussed raking and cleaning up our beds.  It is important to cut roses back, cleaning up all the rose leaves, since they usually harbor diseases and fungus.  In some areas of our vast country, roses need to be covered and protected from the cold, I have even used large plastic bags filled with leaves to cover, but one can buy Styrofoam rose covers, and it is important to make sure the top holes are opened to allow the plants to breath.

Junipers and yews along the roadside should be protected by burlap against the winds and road spray.    Prevailing winds can be fierce in the winter, causing severe winter burn.  Also they need to be protected from deer, who are more hungry with the loss of vegetation. Plants under the eaves of buildings in areas of snowfall should also be protected from the falling snow and ice to avoid breakage.

There is lots of discussion about what to use on sidewalks, sodium versus calcium for both the protection of the walkways and the vegetation bordering the walkways.  Both are harsh chemicals, but calcium can be less killing on the vegetation, in fact, calcium is used to loosen-up hard packed soils.

Hopefully your garden is about ready to go to bed for the winter, dreaming of the coming spring.

[image by Bob Foss]

Lots of people look to sprucing up their places with shrubbery and trees, both nice, adding to the aesthetic value of their place; and both cleaning our air of carbon dioxide.

One thing I know for sure, (sorry Oprah) is that many times the plants are planted but not watered enough.  That is the main reason these plants fail.  Watering is the crucial part of getting a plant to thrive when it is planted.  There are circumstances when you can over water, but generally, you cannot water too much.  If you have very hard, clay-like soil, it is hard to get the water to do the job of filling in around the root systems.

One thing I always do is cut or pull the roots at the outside of the root ball before I place the plant into the hole, which, if the plant is root bound or not, stimulates new growth.

There is lots of documentation about how to plant such as digging a larger hole than the root ball, filling with organic matter or other mediums, but this is really not that critical unless you live in a really terrible soil area.  Dig a hole just big enough for the plant to sit into, backfill, tamping down around the roots, then, make a raised well to hold the water an area a little larger than the root ball; and then water, water, water.  This ensures that the roots are getting enough water, and helps the plant recover from the shock of being planted.

If feeding or fertilizing, use only phosphorus, the P of NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium), which is important to healthy root development.  To get the plant off to a healthy start, the roots need to develop first, and nitrogen will stimulate the top shoot growth.  Hopefully, all this has been done before hard freezes start.

Arborists say that the best time to prune is when you have the time. So if you need to do pruning, do it as you can, when you can.

As long as the plant is pretty healthy, and has a little time to heal over the cuts, usually the task may be done as late as you can stand to be out there doing it! Also, one thing from the old school is that one should seal over the cut with some substance, but research has show that this can actually do more harm than good.

When pruning, one needs to keep in mind that the main trunk of the tree is separate from the branches, and most trees have a collar around the branch. This is an area that is slightly raised on the branch next to the trunk. Always be sure to cut outside the collar on the branch side away from the trunk to keep the integrity of the trunk whole.

Start with dead branches, removing them completely. Standing back, notice if there are branches that are crossed, which causes rubbing, and will damage and eventually kill one or both of the branches.

After selectively removing crossing branches, stand back and look at the tree, this is important, to see the overall aesthetics of the tree.  We want the tree to be somewhat symmetrical, and for the health of the tree, it is important to open up the center of the tree for better airflow and sunlight entry.