Plant Care During Mother Nature’s Slumber

With this frigid weather, the cold nights can become hard to survive for some plants. Many plants will get through the winter without any intervention, but you should always know what to do for your plants over the winter so they’ll do their best come springtime. Here are instructions on how to care for most plants over the winter.

Most of your normal landscaping plants are able to deal with colder temperatures like the one’s we’re going through now. For example, dogwoods, azaleas, rhododendrons, lilacs, yews, and plenty of other common plants are able to resist the cold up to negative 10°F. Bergen county is in the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone of 6 mostly, and mostly all zone 6 plants can survive to negative 10.

So, most of the time as long as you have plants that are native to your home that are adjusted to the weather cycles, your plants will survive much better than plants from a warm climate. These plants will not be able to adjust to such cold temperatures in the winter like 5°F.

Mostly local garden centers will sell you plants that are in your zones. However, this isn’t always the case and they may have some plants that are one or two zones off. These plants can survive fine when the temperatures are higher, but during the winter these plants usually have no chance in weather like we have now (around 10°F or lower).

In the winter, you can’t do too much for plants except for wrapping them. When wrapping any plants, do not just drape the material over your plant.  The proper method is to place stakes around the plant and tie down the material, making sure it covers the plant and offers protection over the winter.

Most of the time your plants will be okay as long as you utilize native plants, and follow the USDA Plant Hardiness Zones. Your plants should be fine over the winter, however it all comes down to which plants you have yourself, so you may have to do some of your own research to find out proper care for certain plants over the winter.

In the meantime, til spring finally does get here; have another cup of hot chocolate, stay warm, and while looking out the window over the winter landscape, think about think about the warmth and rebirth to come forth in 72 days when Mother Nature awakens from her winter slumber.