THE HANDLING OF THE PLANTS - Continued
Winter protection of plants.
[Illustration: Fig. 151. Trees heeled-in for winter.]
If the ground is not ready for planting in the fall, or if it is desired
for any reason to delay until spring, the trees or bushes may be
heeled-in, as illustrated in Fig. 151. The roots are laid in a furrow or
trench, and are covered with well-firmed earth. Straw or manure may be
thrown over the earth still further to protect the roots, but if it is
thrown over the tops, mice may be attracted by it and the trees be
girdled. Tender trees or bushes may be lightly covered to the tips with
earth. Plants should be heeled-in only in loose, warm, loamy or sandy
ground and in a well-drained place.
[Illustration: Fig. 152. Tree earthed up for winter.]
Fall-planted trees should generally be mounded up, sometimes even as
high as shown in Fig. 152. This hilling holds the plant in position,
carries off the water, prevents too deep freezing, and holds the earth
from heaving. The mound is taken away in the spring. It is sometimes
advisable to mound-up established trees in the fall, but on well-drained
land the practice is usually not necessary. In hilling trees, pains
should be taken not to leave deep holes, from which the earth was dug,
close to the tree, for water collects in them. Roses and many other
bushes may be mounded in the fall with profit.
It is always advisable to mulch plants that are set in the fall. Any
loose and dry material--as straw, manure, leaves, leafmold, litter from
yards and stables, pine boughs--may be used for this purpose. Very
strong or compact manures, as those in which there is little straw or
litter, should be avoided. The ground may be covered to a depth of five
or six inches, or even a foot or more if the material is loose. Avoid
throwing strong manure directly on the crown of the plants, especially
of herbs, for the materials that leach from the manure sometimes injure
the crown buds and the roots.
This protection may also be given to established plants, particularly to
those which, like roses and herbaceous plants, are expected to give a
profusion of bloom the following year. This mulch affords not only
winter protection, but is an efficient means of fertilizing the land. A
large part of the plant-food materials have leached out of the mulch by
spring, and have become incorporated in the soil, where the plant makes
ready use of them.
[Illustration: Fig. 153: Covering plants in a box.]
Mulches also serve a most useful purpose in preventing the ground from
packing and baking by the weight of snows and rains, and the cementing
action of too much water in the surface soil. In the spring, the
coarser parts of the mulch may be removed, and the finer parts spaded or
hoed into the ground.
[Illustration: Fig. 154: Covering plants in a barrel.]
Tender bushes and small trees may be wrapped with straw, hay, burlaps,
or pieces of matting or carpet. Even rather large trees, as bearing
peach trees, are often baled up in this way, or sometimes with corn
fodder, although the results in the protection of fruit-buds are not
often very satisfactory. It is important that no grain is left in the
baling material, else mice may be attracted to it. (The danger of
gnawing by mice that nest in winter coverings is always to be
anticipated.) It should be known, too, that the object in tying up or
baling plants is not so much to protect from direct cold as to mitigate
the effects of alternate freezing and thawing, and to protect from
drying winds. Plants may be wrapped so thick and tight as to
injure them.
The labor of protecting large plants is often great and the results
uncertain, and in most cases it is a question whether more satisfaction
could not be attained by growing only hardy trees and shrubs.
The objection to covering tender woody plants cannot be urged with equal
force against tender herbs or very low bushes, for these are protected
with ease. Even the ordinary mulch may afford sufficient protection; and
if the tops kill back, the plant quickly renews itself from near the
base, and in many plants--as in most hybrid perpetual roses--the best
bloom is on these new growths of the season. Old boxes or barrels may
be used to protect tender low plants (Figs. 153, 154). The box is filled
with leaves or dry straw and either left open on top or covered with
boards, boughs, or even with burlaps (Fig. 154).
Connoisseurs of tender roses and other plants sometimes go to the pains
of erecting a collapsible shed over the bush, and filling with leaves or
straw. Whether this is worth while depends wholly on the degree of
satisfaction that one derives from the growing of choice plants (see
Roses, in Chap. VIII).
[Illustration: Fig. 155. Laying down of trellis-grown blackberries.]
The tops of plants may be laid down for the winter. Figure 155 shows a
method of laying down blackberries, as practiced in the Hudson River
valley. The plants were tied to a trellis, as the method is in that
country, two wires (a, b) having been run on either side of the row.
The posts are hinged on a pivot to a short post (c), and are held in
position by a brace (d). The entire trellis is then laid down on the
approach of winter, as shown in the illustration. The blackberry tops
are so strong that they hold the wires up from the ground, even when the
trellis is laid down. To hold the wires close to the earth, stakes are
thrust over them in a slanting position, as shown at n n. The snow
that drifts through the plants ordinarily affords sufficient protection
for plants which are as hardy as grapes and berries. In fact, the
species may be uninjured even without cover, since, in their prostrate
position, they escape the cold and drying winds.
In severe climates, or in the case of tender plants, the tops should be
covered with straw, boughs, or litter, as recommended for regular
mulch-covers. Sometimes a V-shaped trough made from two boards is placed
over the stems of long or vine-like plants that have been laid down. All
plants with slender or more or less pliant stems can be laid down with
ease. With such protection, figs can be grown in the northern states.
Peach and other fruit trees may be so trained as to be tipped over
and covered.
Laid-down plants are often injured if the covering remains too late in
the spring. The ground warms up early, and may start the buds on parts
of the buried plants, and these tender buds may be broken when the
plants are raised, or injured by sun, wind, or frost. The plants should
be raised while the wood and buds are still hard and dormant.
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