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Old 01-23-2021, 11:14 AM
jansch101 jansch101 is offline
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Default Hey gardeners are you going to lose many perennials this winter

So I shredded a lot of leaves in the Fall to spread around the perennials and shrubs as winter protection, and now we’ve had snow on the ground for a few weeks that will also help blanket the leaves, we’re in zone 5 in the Champlain Valley in Vermont but as you get closer to Green Mountains its zone 4. I brought inside a borderline zone 5 potted lavender that’s doing well in a cooler part of the house, along with a perennial basil that’s also stayed leafy green I just forget the name, those I think I’ll keep in pots when I put them back outside in Spring.
And to switch threads I can really recommend Helen Macdonalds new book “Vesper Flights” short essays, mostly but not all bird themed , refreshingly beautiful prose writing , she, of course author of the excellent “H is for Hawk”
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Old 01-23-2021, 11:17 AM
jpd jpd is offline
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Unhappy Hmmmmmm.....

Looks like I already have. my ground cover is trashed along with various others. Very strange eco times in my yard!
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Old 01-23-2021, 12:07 PM
jansch101 jansch101 is offline
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Did mean to mention that overnight temps. have consistently been in the teens bbrrr and daytime high’s in the mid 20’s so hardly balmy, this is a relatively new garden just moved to Vermont in 2019 so perennials etc while not totally virginal in their root systems they have not yet firmly established a totally resilient defense against the throes of winter, ahh spring will tell..
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Old 01-23-2021, 01:36 PM
J Patrick J Patrick is offline
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My wife and I are avid flower gardeners here in Oregon...our gardens are extensive and contain hundreds of perennials...in recent years the rodent and insect population has exploded because of a series of much warmer than normal winters....with no hard freezes that we typically experience in winter the pests are overwintering and each year they are becoming exponentially more numerous...

......they are particularly hard on the perennials and have basically wiped out our tulips...reduced our lillies by more than 50 percent....and have made a major dent in many other plantings....we’ve been gardeners for decades now and this lack of freezing is hitting our gardens much harder than hard freezes ever did...they’re hard on our vegetable gardens too,,,it doesn’t look like we’re gonna get any good cold snaps this year either...

....there are so many rodents that any conventional methods of extermination is pointless....I am hoping to find an affordable source for snakes but so far I have found them to be prohibitively expensive....because of our pest proliferation we have a lot more birds coming though...the songbirds are keeping the insects in check.....the raptors can eat all the gophers, moles, vols and mice they can hold but can’t diminish their ever increasing numbers....

...but we gardeners are a stubborn lot and can endure the failures because the successes are so infinitely gratifying....

Last edited by J Patrick; 01-23-2021 at 01:57 PM.
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Old 01-23-2021, 02:43 PM
jansch101 jansch101 is offline
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This is so interesting J Patrick, I likewise have gardened all my life, growing up in the north of England in Windermere in the Lake District my dads garden was mostly sturdy veggies sprouts, spuds, cabbage, lettuce, leeks etc , most pests were the slugs so we treated them to saucers of beer so they perished with a smile on their face at least, in addition many fruit bushes esp. raspberries, redcurrants, gooseberries and very sturdy vigorous rhubarb plants, damp climate not too harsh a winter climate, and summer temps probably mostly high 60’s and low 70’s so not possible to grow without a greenhouse any summer veggies. The very small front of the house garden was mostly roses and lavender bushes.

On moving to US around 1980 it was then 35+ years of zone 6 Boston area gardens and for the most part I must say pest free, we’ve been fortunate to avoid the deer problem.
So I’ve always thought I’d like to have gardened in a higher zone just for flexibility of growing options but as it turned out we’ve gone down at least one zone here in Vermont but on hearing your story it’s a realty check!! Well all the best this growing season.
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