Tips for Protecting Roses from the Winter Cold

As the weather continues to cool down your outdoor plants become more venerable to the environment. Even before winter hits full force there will be many nights when the frost will be heavy and fragile plants can be damaged so badly that they won’t recover in the spring. Even though roses are one of the most resilient plants around when it comes to making it through the cold winter, they still need a little help in order to survive and flourish when spring rolls around again.

Below you’ll find a few tips to use that will help protect your roses from the winter cold.

• Covering the roses throughout the winter can help to protect them from the snow and ice but don’t cover them too early. Wait until all the leaves have fallen to the ground and you’re sure the plant is dormant first.
• Since roses are dormant during the winter this helps them survive the weather. However, if you use fertilizer late in the year to keep them blooming as long as possible you can prolong their blooming process and delay when they go into the dormant stage. This will actually cause more damage to the plant and make it more susceptible to the weather.
• Use straw to build a small hill around the base of the plant and then cover this with a couple of inches of mulch but do not water. You want the mulch to stay as dry as possible to help prevent the roots from freezing.
• If you have young plants that have not been placed in the ground yet it’s recommended that you bring them inside until spring returns.

Following these tips can help to ensure that your roses will be healthy and beautiful when the weather breaks so you can enjoy them year after year.

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Square Foot Gardening

If you haven’t heard of square foot gardening, you’re about to learn one of the most useful and versatile gardening techniques ever created. Conceived by Mel Bartholomew, author of Square Foot Gardening, the techniques have been enthusiastically adopted by gardeners all over the world. Square foot gardening is eminently suited for container gardening, patio and roof gardening, backyard gardening, organic gardening, herb gardens, vegetable gardens, flower gardens and more.

The basic concept is to start small – the unit of measure is the square foot. Although Bartholomew’s original square foot garden was four feet square, many schools, community gardens and home gardeners start even smaller – a couple of one square foot containers is plenty to get you started. According to Bartholomew though, a four square foot garden provides just enough harvest for one person.

How to Create A Square Foot Garden

Creating your own square foot garden is as easy as building (or buying) a box in which to garden. My own first square foot garden was a two square foot garden on the cement apron outside my back door in a city apartment. I used four square wicker plastic lined wicker wastebaskets bought for a dollar apiece at the All-for-a-Buck store. Any container that can hold 6-8” of dirt, and has drainage holes in the bottom will work. The biggest requirement for location is sun – choose a nice, sunny spot to place your garden.

Did I say dirt? Amend that. Bartholomew recommends what he calls ‘Mel’s mix’ instead of soil. Mix 1/3 vermiculite, 1/3 peat moss and 1/3 compost to fill the squares of your box or container. A 10 pound bag of each was plenty to fill my little 2 square foot garden.

Choosing and Laying Out the Plants for Your Square Foot Garden

The most important factor in laying out your garden is the one-square-foot grid. You’ll be planting one type of plant in each square – how many of them depends on the recommended spacing between plants – which you’ll find on the back of the seed packets. Depending on the needs of the specific seedlings, you can plant 1, 4,  9 or 16 plants in each square. To break it down - if the recommendation on the seed packet is 1 foot apart, you can plant 1 in a square. If they need six inches between plants, you can plant 4. Two inches gives you room for 9 plants, and one inch spacing means you can fit 16 plants into one square foot.

My own first square foot garden was a spaghetti garden with this layout:

   1 Basil Plant  4 Tomato plants

   1 Oregano Plant 16 Onion plants

After You Harvest Your Square Foot Garden

Harvest the crop in each square foot when it’s ready, and continue harvesting until it’s no longer producing fruit/vegetables. At that point, uproot the plants in that square (use them for compost!), and plant another, different crop. By refilling and rotating the crops, you avoid depleting the natural nutrients of the soil, and keep every bit of space productive throughout an entire growing season.