Winter time in Kansas City is the time of year where you can pack up your landscaping tools and hoses for the year, and forget about your plants, right? Not quite. While winter is the time of year where most of our perennial plants have lost their leaves and have gone dormant, it is also the time of year where trees and plants can be damaged or die unnecessarily. In this blog post, we will provide you with useful tips to preserve and maintain the health of your landscaping, ensuring it thrives when spring arrives.
1. Water Consistently
Even though many of the trees and plants have gone dormant, that does not mean that they no longer need consistent watering. One of the biggest mistakes home-owners and commercial clients can make is to turn off their irrigation systems too early in the year. Irrigation lines should be buried no less than 6” deep, and ideally, should be 10-12” deep. Regardless, ground temperatures in Kansas City typically do not drop below freezing until well into December and even January. Due to the colder temperatures, trees and shrubs do not need nearly the watering that they require in the summer months, and a good watering once a week or every other week will be plenty to keep the ground from drying out and allow your dormant plantings to grow their roots. This is the main reason for watering through the winter. Although you will not be able to see it, winter time is when your trees and shrubs are growing their roots and saving up energy for the next spring. Watering during the winter will strengthen your plants and give them the energy they need to bloom beautifully in the spring.
2. Apply Fertilizer
The dormant months of the year are also the best time of the year to apply fertilizers to trees and shrubs. For the same reasons as winter watering, winter fertilization helps promote healthy roots and can give your plants the nutrients they may become deficient of during our hot and dry summers. The roots of your trees and shrubs are still very active and will store up the nutrients from fertilizers until spring, when they will use this energy to bloom and leaf out vigorously. Winter fertilization also helps with tree and shrub growth. Specifically, if the goal for your landscape area is to provide natural screening from neighbors, streets, other buildings, etc., fertilizing in the winter can help boost the growth of your trees in the first 3 years after planting.
3. Top Dress Mulch
Top dressing your mulch areas in November-December is also one of the most beneficial things you can do for your landscaping heading into the coldest months of the year. We are accustomed to the wild swing in temperatures that we can experience in the Kansas City area. It is not uncommon to see temperatures below 20 degrees with sleet and snow, and then sunny and 45 degrees in the same day, let alone the same week. These temperature swings can be hard on perennial plants, especially those with bare or surface level roots. By providing a top-dressing of 2-3” of hardwood mulch to your landscaping, you help your plants in several ways. First, you are providing a temperature barrier for the roots of your plants. Mulch will help slow the rise and fall of soil temperatures that can be hard on your plants. Hardwood mulch also acts as a moisture lock, and will help prevent your plants from drying out as quickly over the winter. Days with low temperatures and high winds can dry out and damage bare roots rather quickly, and the damage won’t show until spring. Finally, a fresh layer of mulch can be aesthetically pleasing. By the end of the year, most of the mulch that was installed in the spring will have blown away or been washed out. A new layer of mulch will add some color to your landscape and a backdrop for any evergreen trees and shrubs you have, allowing them to stand out even more against the dormant plantings.
Winter can be tough on your landscaping, but it is important to take steps to ensure that your plants stay healthy year-round. Remember to continue watering your plants once a week to every two weeks during the winter, apply fertilizer, and top dress trees and shrubs as necessary. If you need help with fertilizing or top dressing your landscaping, please don’t hesitate to give us a call for a free quote. Protecting your landscaping throughout winter ensures you have lush greenery all year long, so don't overlook these important tips! Your beautiful landscape will be worth the extra effort.
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