Nature Revels in Winter

[Pompeii]

Nature Revels in Winter

Cheryl J. Shenkle

Dec 2021

 

While rocks, tree roots and waterways lie under a cover of snow and ice, nature is busily at work, peacefully and quietly preparing for the next growing season.  As we save food for the winter, or should be, so does the earth.  Remember the grasshopper and the ants?

In winter, underground rocks are pressured by frost to rise closer to the surface of soil.  As they move, they break, grinding at some points into sand particles or even smaller.  Any farmer who is tilling for spring planting or cutting crops in the fall will tell you that “those rocks weren’t there before”.  Many a harvesting machine has sucked up a rock that mysteriously arrived just in time to cut grains and corn, and in time to smash equipment.

In your garden, as the snow melts and you look out across the garden that you carefully prepped for spring the previous fall, there are lumps and hollows, rocks and mud puddles.  Who was running rampant in the garden while it was frozen?  I think it was Mother Nature using frost and ice to create the soil in which you will want to grow plants.  She’s just not very neat about doing it.

The previous summer, the trees, shrubs and grasses were busily feeding on sugars that they created in their leaves and shunted down to the root hairs to feed to the underground bacteria called Mycorrhiza. In turn, the bacteria absorbed minerals from the soil and gave it to their Horticultural hosts to use as building blocks for stems and leaves.  That cafeteria line rolls both ways, up and down.

Extra carbohydrates are stored in the roots of plants, waiting for the time when they will need to be plentiful for immediate cell growth.  If there aren’t enough, then the plant will probably die soon after attempting an initial flush of leafy growth, or the plant will already be DOA when spring warmth and sun finally arrive to wake it up.

Think of plants that were hurriedly planted in the cold earth in fall.  If the plant did not have a moist root ball large enough to shield the root hairs, and the was no time left to save up carbs, then it probably dehydrated or starved in the middle of winter.  If it did not have enough time to grow roots to firmly grasp the soil into which it was planted or if that soil had too many empty air spaces, then you will probably find it popped up out of the ground with frozen dead roots in the spring. Mulching helps, but it cannot completely fix the problem of a poorly planted plant.  Those air pockets make great little winter homes for all kinds of root chewers too.

A late fall can also cause food loss if the late warmth tricks the plant into believing there is still time for a season of leaves before winter.  Precious carbs are used up in a mistaken hope, leaving less food than the plant will need in the spring.  A plants which survives in a borderline Zone near its preferred growing Zone will often fall prey to the mistiming of growing cycles.  They may prosper for years, and then die suddenly without discernable cause because of an unusually lengthy fall or winter.

For our own gardens this means we need to plant a cover crop such as annual Rye on our soil to not only prevent erosion and to mitigate the heaving and settling of frost, but to protect our microbes and decomposers that might still be working during the cold spells. 

Gardens should be watered till the ground freezes, as should evergreens and planting beds.  Rhododendrons and Azaleas will roll up their leaves if necessary to help prevent desiccation from the cold dry winds of winter so they need to be well watered before the drying situation occurs.  Established trees, especially natives, rarely dry out in the winter as they know from centuries of ancestors growing in this area, when and how to save resources.  As long as they were healthy and insect free before fall, they will flourish through the winter and come back strong in the spring.  They also will probably have a good soil covering already established. 

Mulched gardens will have substantially less heaving and settling, as their soil will maintain a more steady temperature through the warmer and colder spells.  You can always mulch once the ground has frozen but do not bury the crown of any plants, nor push mulch up against the trunk of trees.  Any bark chewing critters will appreciate the cover which allows them to crawl right up to the tree for lunch, unseen and protected from their own predators.  While leaves are suitable mulch, there is always the danger that pests such as Tent Caterpillars or Invasive insects and beetles may have settled there for the winter.  In fall they climb down the tree and hole up in the loose detritus under the tree, just waiting for warmer weather when they can re-climb the tree to eat new leaves and raise their young.  That cycle can be stopped by removing leaves to a compost area and replacing the mulch with clean woodchips.

So year round, particularly in the winter, mitate nature, especially native plants which all have their winter maintenance program down pat.  Unless we humans mess up their plans, they will do just fine.

Master Gardeners are available for group presentations.  Contact the office for specifics.

Certified Master Gardeners are local volunteers trained by Penn State to answer Horticulture questions with properly researched information. For a “best practices” answer to your question, call Penn State Jefferson County Extension at 849-7361, Ext 508, e-mail cjs5618@psu.edu, or mail your question to 186 Main Street, Suite 3, Brookville, PA 15825. 

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