Some old adages about gardening may soon be tossed in the fall compost.
St. Albert Botanic Park volunteers, who manage the city's biggest garden, are changing their ways. The garden has grown increasingly more colourful with more dahlias and roses than ever before, but in the fall, those bigger flowerbeds also require a lot more work.
"We started with about 25 dahlias. Now we have 215 to dig up, tag, dry and store for the winter," said long-time garden volunteer John Beedle.
There are also 400 rose bushes in the park. While many of the hardy shrub varieties fend for themselves through the winter, the tea and miniature rose varieties need to be insulated against the cold.
Winterizing plants takes work, but perhaps the labour needn't be as arduous as gardeners once believed.
Here are some of the different techniques St. Albert gardeners are trying this fall:
Roses
Protecting roses from a harsh winter begins with the planting. The graft-bud, where the tender rose is grafted to the hardier root, needs to be planted six to eight inches beneath the soil. The soil protects the root from freezing. When you cover your roses in the fall, dig a new hole if need be, to make sure the graft is deep enough.
Still, roses need some frost in the fall. Roses will do better the following spring if they are allowed to freeze in the fall so they can harden off. The canes will turn a dark purplish black colour after they have frozen.
"It's better if they go dormant first and for that they need frost. Really, the worst time for roses is in the spring, once the snow goes away. In spring, keep them well covered until you are sure they won't freeze," said botanic park volunteer Joan Parker.
The old technique required gardeners to cut the canes in the fall before covering the plants with a mound of insulating material such as peat moss or dry leaves.
But Richard and Margaret Plain no longer follow that exact formula. They love roses, and have grown many prizewinners over the years, but the former mayor and councillor were so busy with their political and volunteer responsibilities, they shortened the process of getting the bushes ready for winter.
"The key is to protect the graft. If the graft is protected by burying it at least six inches deep, you can leave pruning the canes until spring," said Margaret Plain, as she explained that she has not cut the canes back for several years and yet she hasn't seen a difference in the number of roses that survived to spring.
"I water the roses well and then cover them with a mound of leaves, which acts as a blanket. Over the winter we throw snow on the rose bed," said Plain, as she stressed that if gardeners understand the simple fact that plants will need water in the spring, they'll understand the protection procedure better.
"It's not voodoo. If we have a dry spring, the layer of leaves keeps moisture in the soil. It's drying out that kills the roses. You need to protect that moisture," she said.
But if the insulating material gets wet or muggy it could become mildewed and kill the roses.
"That's why I use dry ash-tree leaves that are curly," Plain said.
Dahlias
The first 25 dahlias in the botanic park's flower beds came from John Beedle's own garden, which he maintained before he retired as parks foreman at the city of St. Albert.
For years Beedle and about a dozen park volunteers have followed the same ritual to care for the dahlias, but now the park has more than 250 plants. They are changing their storage method this year. The dahlias will still be allowed to freeze and harden off before they are dug up and tucked away in boxes filled with wood shavings, but they will no longer be hosed off and washed.
"It became a monumental job to hose all the dirt off and to make it worse, it was always so cold when the work was done. This year we're going to see what happens if we just let them dry with the dirt still on them. We're hoping the dirt falls off," said volunteer Sandy Graveline.
Dahlias will not live over the winter if left in the ground. They should be stored in a garage or basement that is at 5 to 10 Celsius.
Tulips and daffodils
I have a wide front garden full of daffodils and tulips that has grown over the years. Each year I add to a few more and now there are probably a few hundred bulbs in my flowerbed.
Other gardeners have told me they have a hard time growing tulips and I think the reason for their failure may be similar to what Plain told me about protecting roses.
Bulb flowers will need water in the spring. As it happens, I have roses in the same area as the tulips. As I water the roses, I water the bulbs and so far it has resulted in a host of golden daffodils each May.
I plant the bulbs at about the same six-inch depth as the rose graft buds are planted. That's a full spade deep, so they are well protected by the soil. In years when I failed to do that, I've found that as the ground froze and heaved, the bulbs would be found frozen in the spring, lying on top of the soil.
The rule of thumb is to plant bulbs at least three times the height of the bulb and if you think of this when digging in your fall garden, you'll remember to put smaller bulbs a little closer to the surface.
And yes! You can plant tulips now. Another old rule of thumb was that tulips needed to be planted in September, but it seems I'm always busy at that time. I've put planting tulips off until on planting day my hands were blue with cold. I've worn gloves when I planted tulips, and still, cold as I was, the tulips never seemed to mind.
If you are into experimenting, try planting several bulbs in a pot. Then wrap the pot with insulation and keep it in a garage. Next March, bring the tulips out, take off the insulation, and see if they will bloom on a sunny deck.
