How Winter Does damage your garden

How Winter Does Damage in your Garden: When spring comes we will all assess how our plants came through the winter. Typically, we will blame problems on the obvious--recent weather or a new insect sighting. Or we will blame the plant or the guy who sold it to us. (what may have happened to some of your plants.) We tend to have short-term memories; we obliterate what happened last season, the condition of the plant going into winter, and the harsh weeks of winter weather like this one.


 1 - Smashed, broken, blown down plants Physical damage is the most obvious. Windstorms knock down trees or take out branches, especially on multi-trunk, weak-wooded, badly sited, drought stressed, poorly pruned or poorly structured trees. Ice from roofs and snow from plows and blowers crush, disfigure or uproot landscape plants. Plant selection, placement and good landscaping are the prevention and cures—all topics for lifelong learning.

2 - Evergreens turned brown In late winter Many evergreens—yews or arborvitaes for example--turn brown (especially on the windward side of the plant) or they look bleached. The primary reason is that the winter winds and sunshine promote transpiration (water loss through the leaves/needles) while the roots are frozen and can’t replace the water. Also winter sun warms up plant tissues and activates cellular activities, leading to tissue damage when the temperature drops quickly. Sometimes during sunny but cold days, leaves use up their chlorophyll and can’t replace it, so that leaves appear

bleached.

3 - Bark cracking and splitting This is sun scald. On sunny winter days, the bark heats up on the south or southwest side of a tree causing cambial activity (movement of fluids just under the outer bark). When the temperature drops quickly the cells burst and tissues die. Thin-barked and young trees are most vulnerable. Tree wraps and plant placement (blocked from direct winter sun) are preventive options. 4 - Frost heaving The smallest or most recently installed plants are most at risk from root desiccation—often fatal--when the soil freezes and thaws, heaving the root ball out of the ground or letting air in through cracks in the soil. Mulching helps prevent this. If heaving occurs, press the plants back into the soil asap.

5 - Roots death from severe cold Tree roots die when the surrounding soil temperature drops to a particular degree—the degree depending on the species. The lowest possible temperature a plant might experience is only one factor affecting its survival, but it’s important. Fortunately, soil temperatures drop slower than air temperatures, or we would lose lots more plants in winter cold spells. Many of our plants would die if the roots reached zero degrees F., but fortunately those roots are below ground and rarely reach that temperature. The roots freeze even slower if the soil is well mulched or snow-covered, or if the soil was moist when it froze. Acclimation is Key No matter how hardy, no plant would survive a New York winter without going through a seasonal change called acclimation. It’s logical and intuitive: If you take a tree that’s blooming in a February flower show and drop it outside.

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