Caring for Your Garden Throughout the Winter

How to take care of a garden thru the winter--watering and mulching.

  • Topic: Winter Care
  • Keywords: winter, watering, mulching, Maintenance, gardens
  • Date: October 2001

© All articles are copyrighted by High Country Gardens. Republication is prohibited without Permission.

In an ideal world, outdoor plants would get exactly what they needed from Mother Nature, but because we live in the beautiful Southwest we are quite aware that our plants would be awfully thirsty without gardener intervention. Water concerns do not end when winter comes. In fact, plant loss in the wintertime is more commonly caused by lack of water than by freezing temperatures.

The ideal situation for most perennial and nursery plants would be a gradual cooling all fall, a constantly frozen ground all winter, and a gradual warming in the spring. However, our growing conditions can be a bit more challenging.

You can meet that challenge and get your garden safely through winter and into spring after spring by paying attention to two things: mulching and watering.

There’s been a lot of talk about using mulch to moderate the rapid fluctuations of soil temperature, but perhaps more important is the role that mulch plays in getting water to plant roots and helping to keep it there. The tiny root hairs that grow off of main root systems are responsible for getting water and nutrients to the plant. For root hairs to live they must be moist. If they dry out, they die. Even if the main root system survives the winter, if the root hairs are gone the plant will suffer.

The roots in the top foot of soil dry out rapidly in the winter winds. Due to relative humidity (cold air holds less moisture), it is vitally important that you supplement the water provided by winter snows. Here are a few things to keep in mind when doing winter watering:

  • Water only when the air temperature is above freezing. You’ll want to apply water early in the day so that it will have time to soak in before nighttime freezing. If water stands around the base of a tree it can freeze and damage the bark. Heavy coatings of ice on turfgrasses can cause suffocation or result in matting of the grass.
  • Lawn grasses are prone to winter damage-especially newly planted lawns, both sod and seeded. Pay particular attention to turf on southern exposures.
  • As a rule of thumb, evergreen trees need more water than deciduous ones. Any plant with shallow root systems, such as pine, spruce, non-native juniper, Euonymous and Oregon grape will be more susceptible to winter damage.
  • When watering woody plants that have been planted in the last two seasons, the most important area to water is the distance from halfway between the plant and the outer stretch of the branches to approximately one foot beyond the “drip line” of branch extremities. This also prevents water from building up near the trunk of the plant.
  • P-4 water retention crystals are a great way to keep water where it’s needed the most in winter weather-near the roots of your plants. We have P-4 in 5 oz. containers as well as by the scoop.

The driest months in New Mexico are in the winter. Now is a good time to provide your trees with a good deep watering to get started on the right foot. Throughout the winter, you’ll want to water lawns, shrubs, bulbs and perennial beds about once a month. When planning watering, keep in mind that winds affect soil moisture dramatically during the winter months-snow storms followed by strong winds can leave soils drier than before the storm.

If you pay attention to the needs of your plants during the coming months, they will reward you with stronger, healthier growth when you need it the most-after a cold, dry winter.