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Jill and Rick Van Duyvendyk answer all your gardening questions in Garden Talk on 650 CKOM and 980 CJME every Sunday morning from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.
Here is a selection of questions and answers from the Oct. 27 show:
Q: How can I protect my tree trunks from pests in Saskatchewan winter?
A: You can use a tree wrap or tree collars. The tree wrap is white or brown and about four inches wide, so wrap the trunk all the way up until where the branches split out. The tree collars are either a corrugated PVC tube with a split down the middle that you open it up or a plastic spiral that you wind around as high as you want to go.
Black weeping tile attracts more sunscald that causes cracks so you want to watch that, but as long as the weeping tile is bigger than the trunk and not sitting tight against it, it’s going to vent out the top anyway. You can also use a fine screen door mesh.
Some rodents are going to get underneath the snow. Mice will travel along the ground and then work up the snow to the tree. Rabbits will walk on top of the snow to get to a tree, too. For rabbits, put a snow fence or posts with chicken wire around the tree. Rabbits love trees like cedars in the winter. If you have a lot of voles, now it’s time to put your snap traps out with some peanut butter and a craisin as bait. You’ll catch a lot of voles right.
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Q: Is it still okay to trim spruce trees?
A: Yes, absolutely. You can do a lot of trimming right now. We’re getting to the end of maples and birch trees, because if they are trimmed in November they’ll tend to bleed in the spring. But spruce and evergreens are not a problem.
Q: Is there a benefit to using cardboard boxes for winter installation or would a milk crate packed with leaves worked just as well?
A: You can really use either depending on the size of your plant, as long as it is allowing insulation around the plant. It’s the footprint, not the height that matters. It needs to to keep the ground heat, and the wider the footprint, the more heat.
One example is that we cover extra shrubs left in pots with an insulated blanket, like the ones used for concrete, and measure the temperature at 12 noon and at midnight every day. The temperature underneath those blankets is roughly the same as it is outside. But as soon as we get some snow that covers up the edges of the blanket, the temperature under it sits at about minus 2 deg C all winter, and the plants can handle that. Even if it’s minus 50 deg C it will still be minus 2 deg C two underneath the blanket.
Q: Can I still put spring bulbs like tulips, daffodils and crocuses or garlic in the ground?
A: Absolutely, yes. Put them in the ground and mulch them a bit — the ground is still warm. You can also put them in the fridge for 12 to 14 weeks, just make sure they’re not in with any your fruit, and then you can plant them about six weeks before you want them to start blooming.
(Fikelephi Ndisile/pexels.com)
See Dutch Growers guide to Building a Vegetable Garden for Beginners here.
Q: Should I plant next season’s vegetable garden north to south or east to west?
A: Always north to south because the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
Q: How can I keep bamboo grass all winter in Saskatchewan?
A: Keep it growing throughout the winter. You might want to supplement with a grow light as well. Cut it short if you’re going to bring it inside. It’s a tricky one — you want to keep its feet quite wet indoors when it’s not getting as much light so make sure you don’t let it dry out. Remember it’s a grass so it grows like grass with rhizomes underneath, so it’ll be fairly rootbound. You might want to divide it into some smaller pots as well to so if you forget to water the big plant you have some little plants that you’ve started as well.
Q: Is it too late to move some poplar trees this fall? They’re about five feet tall.
A: Move them in the spring if you can or you might get some tip kill on the plants. Around April 15 is the best time to do it.
Q: My pomegranate trees have lost all their leaves since I brought them in the house, but I have got some new growth. How should I care for them over the winter?
A: You’re not doing anything wrong, everything is completely normal. They’re adapting to their new environment. You’ll see this with citrus and tropical fruiting plants as well — you bring them inside and they drop almost all their leaves. Sometimes they’ll drop right down to one third when they are stressed and produce flowers and start fruiting while they have no leaves. Make sure you continue with consistent watering and allow the soil to feel dry to the touch before watering.
Also increase the humidity around your plants with a tray of water with rocks on it. Set the pot on top so the water can evaporate around the plants. The third thing you want to do is add light. We have six to eight hours of sunlight in the winter in Saskatchewan, so no window is going to have enough light to sustain a citrus or pomegranate through the winter season. Add a grow light running for 10 to 14 hours a day if you want to keep it actively growing. If you have lots of new growth, you can also do some light pruning on the tips of the plant and that will promote new growth as well.
Q: How much should I prune Nanking Cherry shrubs?
A: Trim them back only 25 per cent but thin them more inside to let more light inside. It’s OK to trim the top off, but the biggest thing is to thin it out a bit.
Q: Can I use Wilt-Pruf to protect small spruce trees and cedars over winter?
A: Yes, it will keep them from desiccating because it basically stops transpiring in the winter time, especially on a south side of a house. You have to apply it in plus 10 deg C temperatures when the plants more dormant. It’s in March and the first week of April when the ground is still frozen and the sun’s getting higher in the sky, that you have the biggest desiccation issues.
If you have any live greens or Christmas wreaths, you can also spray them with Wilt-Pruf. You can even use it on a live Christmas tree you can use the will proof. Put all the greenery out on a garage floor in 10 deg C temperatures, and spray them, flip them over, and spray again then let them dry for about a day.
Q: Can I transplant irises in fall or should I store them for the winter?
A: Plant them right away if you can — you’ll be able to keep them in the ground at a better temperature. Water them in and they’ll be fine. Plant them with some of the existing soil on the roots. To store them, rinse the roots to make sure you get all the soil off but if you’re transplanting them right away, keep that soil and root ball intact as much as possible.
Q: Should I cut back blue fescue grass in fall or in spring?
A: You can cut it back right now — it’ll probably be a little bit easier while it’s growing — but you can do it in the spring as well.
Q: When planting tulips, should I water them before I cover them with soil or after they are buried?
A: You want to make sure there’s a little bit of moisture in there, but remember they’re a bulb. If you have any clay in your soil, make sure you have some sand at that bottom of the hole so the bulb is well drained. It depends on your area — you want to settle the soil around the bulb but you’re not soaking them.
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