Dayton "Dirt" - November 1, 2013

With many frosty nights last week, the nursery stock in containers has finally received the “signal” to shut down for a long winter’s nap so that we finished covering the overwintering huts in order to keep the wind and severe cold off the plants roots. After covering the huts, a fungicide will be applied and then afterwards, at least 100 mouse traps will be baited with a sunflower seed and set to catch mice that will attack perennials and some of the shrubs in the huts as they eat all winter long if not checked! The color on the poinsettias is starting to intensify with most varieties ready to sell about a week before Thanksgiving. Now the work begins on cutting branches for grave blankets with the cascading styles made with Scotch pine branches being the first ones ready. The spruce style blankets are constructed later as the needles on the branches tend to shed if cut too early. Cut Christmas trees from southern Ohio will arrive in less than a month, just a few days before Thanksgiving on November 28th, but until that time, there’s still plenty to work on to get ready for the Christmas season and the coming winter. No doubt the weather will be cold but the question is “How Cold?” Even though predictions are for a severe winter, severe is a relative term in that adequate snow cover will mitigate severely cold temperatures as far as many plants are concerned. The worst possible scenario is for high winds, little or no snow with temperatures of 0º Fahrenheit or lower such as happened on January 28, 2007 and January 30, 2008 when temperatures plummeted quickly and winds gusted to as much as 60 m.p.h. I remember wrapping rhododendrons with burlap that were exposed to strong winds so that they would not “burn” with cold, harsh winds and almost no snow. Some of the same rhododendron are now almost 6 ft. tall and are in no need of wind protection as a spruce hedge to the west has grown to protect the plants from the winter winds that can do so much damage. Time to go. Tom