WE ARE HEADING INTO A week that I like to call my wrap up week. There are some things in our yards that should have been done by now or at least you should be wrapping up this week. This is also the week that America celebrates Veterans Day. Unlike Memorial Day when we remember those who died fight- ing for our country, Veterans Day is to honor those who served in the United States Armed Forces. At 11 a.m. on the 11th day of the 11th month an armistice was signed to end the fighting during World War I. President Woodrow Wilson declared this a national holiday so people could honor those who served by flying an American flag at our homes or busi- nesses. It’s a day to thank a veteran or a soldier for their service to our country and at 11 a.m. to have a moment of silence to show our respect.
Like on Memorial Day, poppies are the flower associated with this national holiday. We usually grow a crop of Icelandic poppies to be ready for sale now and throughout the winter months. The poppies will keep on blooming until they can’t take the heat around June. I usually mix them in beds with delphinium, fox glove, hollyhocks, Larkspur, snapdragons and love-in-a-mist (Nigella) for a great spring show. It’s time to have located and planted these plants or seeds. Another thing I have checked off my list is if you are going to green up some areas with ryegrass it’s time to have that done as they need a little warmth to germinate.
I have a few areas I like to green up for the winter months. At the beginning of my driveway I have a small area of turf that is lined with natural stone with beds that will be blooming all winter and through Easter which this year will be on April 17. When my winter hardy flowers and tulips are blooming at the end of my driveway I like the grass to be lush green. It seems a little crazy since maybe two cars a day go past my driveway but it looks so good up against those rock walls.
That is the place Mimi and Barney, our Corgi, and I wind up our day after dinner. We take a walk to digest our dinner and to see the plants with our lights on them, a totally different perspective than seeing them during daylight hours. Barney patrols around protecting us from any- thing that might be hiding in the bushes like a ferocious deer or a lost cat. He also helps us by fertilizing every post tree trunk or rock that needs a good marking. There is another area close to the front door walkway that we enjoy seeing green all winter, again bordered by stone but has blooming Shi Shi Sasanqua that are at least 10 years old. With their dark green foliage and dark pink blooms the ryegrass makes it look all the better.
There is a view from our kitchen win- dow of the backside of the levee of our pond that is refreshing to see green plus in the spring when the same family of geese that have been nesting and hatching goslings for the last 10 years try yet again to outsmart the local fox. The ryegrass makes the baby geese look a little cuter as they learn to navigate their new world. To my knowledge not one has survived that wiley fox.
If you decide to play around with green grass in the winter months by using rye- grass be sure to use the annual ryegrass called frog hair. It never grows tall enough to need mowing and it’s not so hard for your real turf grass to recover from when the spring green up returns. The other annual ryegrass gets very tall and lays all over your turf grass causing recovery problems in the spring plus who wants to mow grass all winter? I let the other 90% of my grass go natural, we do like for winter to look like winter and enjoy all the distinctly different seasons of the year. In the areas of my turf where we don’t put ryegrass seed and in our beds where we don’t plant bulbs I have put out a pre-emergence to slow down the germi- nation of weed seeds.
Winter weeds can take over an area in your turf that given enough time can also make recovery during the green-up very difficult for your grass. It can leave bare spots in your yard that you’ll have to deal with next spring. It’s too easy to stay on top of weeds in your grass and in the beds during the winter months not to put out some pre-emergence now and again in February.
I HAVE WINTERIZED MY irrigation system by getting all the water out of my pipes so they won’t freeze and split when it gets cold enough. I have a few faucets around the yard that I’ll leave functional in case we plant something new during the winter months that needs to be watered or if we have a dry winter. The faucets on the sides of my house are protected from freezing with outdoor foam faucet covers made for that purpose. It was this week last year that we had temperatures in the teens. It's time to get ready for any surprises like that.
I have not begun cutting my perennials back just yet. I’d like to see winter burn them a little before I start that process. I feel like by preemptively cutting things back this time of year I would be risking a weird Mississippi warm up in November or December which might cause the plants to put on some new growth. That new growth could get burned and do some real damage to the plant if the temperatures drop suddenly like we often do. I cut my perennials back in stages as winter dictates, until they are cut back to the ground when I can lightly mulch them and put them to bed until spring. I don’t freshen up mulch in our big beds until springtime. With more rain, cooler temperatures and shorter days plants are not taking up much water. By heavily mulching in the winter I feel like I’m just asking the soil to stay wet longer which is good for nothing. I would rather see the soil of the bed in winter be
exposed to the sunlight and have a chance to dry out between rains. When the night temperatures get back to the 60s consecutively, usually around mid-April, I will mulch everything to help retain some moisture and keep the weeds to a min- imun.
Mimi has planted our garden this year with seeds of plants we enjoy all winter. She had the foresight to sow the seeds while the ground was still warm back in October. This year we will be enjoying and sharing carrots, bok choy, Chinese cabbage, several kinds of kale, several kinds of lettuces and arugula. We have a close friend who can work magic on any kind of produce we share with him. Win Win! In the same area of the garden are our Asian persimmon trees with branches dragging the ground they have so many persimmons on them. I will harvest them today before the birds find them. I’ll leave a few for them, too.
Today we will put our birdfeeders out so the birds will get used to knowing “I can stop off here for a meal when the pickins get slim later this winter.” I have my barn loaded with this year‘s firewood. I have my place near the back door loaded with a few weeks worth of fire- wood that I will replenish as it gets used. I keep the firewood near the house blown off when we blow off the back deck since roaches and beetles like to find homes under the bark of the split firewood. If I don’t keep the wood blown off, a roach or beetle will find their way inside the house when I bring it in to burn.
I camp and hunt a lot during the winter months. Mimi enjoys a break from me and loves to have great big fires while she enjoys some solitude. I’ll make sure she is set up so fire starting is as easy as it can be for her.
My checklist of the annual have-tos is done. I am hoping you have reached that point on your list of gardening preparedness so you can relax and enjoy the gift of a winter break. Make your backyard oasis a place so great that you start to really believe that there is no place like home.