Winterizing Your Landscape
By Bruce Lee Deuley - 12/21/03

Typical winter weather here in the hill country is usually mild but there are those “blue northerns” which occasionally drop the mercury into the teens and sometimes even into the single digits.

Plants growing in containers should be brought in during extremely cold weather and returned to their regular location when temperatures normalize. If you have too many containerized plants to get them all moved indoors, move them to a protected area up against the house and group them as close together as possible.

On very cold nights, cover them with some old blankets or several layers of a spin-bound polyester fabric cover. These covers, also called row cover, can be purchased at any good nursery. You can also put plastic sheeting over the blanket to help hold the heat. However, do not let the plastic touch the leaves of your plants or it could cause leaf damage. The same technique can be used for plants in the ground. The blankets are used to keep the warmth in the soil around the plants so should reach the ground.

The idea of wrapping plants into a “landscape lollipop” does little, if any good, since the plant itself puts out no heat. The exception might be a plant you have wrapped with a string of old-fashioned Christmas lights. On very cold nights, plug in the lights and wrap or cover the plant with blankets or row cover. Heat from the lights will help protect the plant very well. The new little tiny lights now used most of the time are not near as effective as the old bulb type.

Your landscape plants should be well mulched. Watering a day or two ahead of an upcoming freeze is also a good idea since stressed plants are more susceptible to injury from the effects of cold weather. In addition, moist soil is a good heat sink, absorbing heat during the day and radiating it out slowly on cold nights.

Foliar feeding with a liquid containing seaweed helps make plants more cold tolerant and will allow them to survive in temperatures 4 or 5 degrees colder than they could normally withstand. In order for the seaweed spray to be of value it really needs to be used a couple of weeks ahead of anticipated cold weather. In fact, it is a good thing to do for your plants year around and helps to build vigor as well as serving in the capacity of an effective pest repellent, in many cases, preventing infestations of aphids, spider mites and other pest from ever attacking your foliar sprayed plants. On a last note, sprinkling the foliage or plants prior to a freeze does NOT help protect them. In fact, it can do more harm than good.

Good gardening and happy holidays!