Winter Gardening

    Winter gardening takes many different directions where the snow falls and the cold wind blows. Lazy gardeners salivate over garden catalogs until spring returns. Unreconstructed gardeners fill out long lists, ordering from the same catalogs and worry about what they will do with the order after it arrives. Then there are the escapist gardeners who spend the winter somewhere in the south and forget what is up north. There is another category, to which I belong. My penchant is to start things from seed during the winter, getting a kick out of being involved in the very beginning of plant life, especially if I have collected the seed myself. Sometimes I am successful, sometimes not.

    Last year I gathered seeds from Red Bud and Golden Rain trees. I went on-line to find out how to germinate them. I was startled to say the least when the results for both the Red Bud and the Golden Rain tree called for either a bath in sulfuric acid or boiling water prior to cold stratification. Not having any sulfuric acid on hand I chose the boiling water method despite many reservations. I still don't believe I have done anything other than killing the seeds. Time will tell but I am not optimistic.

    Where I live it is not only the hardiness of plants that must be taken into account but their desirability to deer as well. I do not believe the lists of deer resistant plants. My deer do not seem to be dissuaded by any old list compiled by a non deer. Their voracious appetites lead them to devour all but the more dangerous species. Monkshood, also known as Wolfbane (Aconitum napellus) is one that unfortunately they avoid. In the winter, after a new snowfall, the deer exhibit their disdain for me and all my plantings by planting their hoof prints right up to my front door.

    There is one favor that the deer actually did for me. They removed most of the above ground portion of a Canna lily, making it easier to dig up the part they could not reach so I could store it indoors over winter. Dahlia tubers also come indoors for the winter. I have found that potting both the Cannas and Dahlias a couple of months before they can be moved outside in the early summer insures me of bloom before frost.