Easy stuff
As I write British Columbia is very cold. It’s minus twelve degrees Celsius and it feels way worse when you’re actually outside. But, once it warms up, you can attend to some easy garden tasks.
Trees
Broken branches can’t wait. They look awful, they could create a hazard and the last thing we need is diseases getting inside our tree through open wounds.
Use a sharp pole pruner and take it out nicely.
Hakonechloa
Japanese forest grasses (Hakonechloa) can also be snipped because they’re on their way out. Use sharp hand snips and flush cut them at ground level. Just watch your fingers.
Plant separation
As plants grow and mature, they collide and then require separation when it gets out of hand. One example is the common snowberry being invaded by a mahonia.
When the snowberry is in leaf, this isn’t so obvious. And landscapers also have other, slightly more important, tasks to attend to during the busy season. In winter there is time for separation pruning.
So, one plant has to go. Since the mahonia creeped in and it’s smaller, I elected to cut it completely. This leaves the snowberry alone to do it’s thing. It’s a native plant which produces clusters of white berries, thus the common name snowberry. The botanical name is Symphoricarpos albus and I encourage you to Google it and get one for your garden.
It’s a good native plant. I rescued two specimens a few years ago and planted them at my commercial site. One has white berries and the other has pinkish ones. They’re doing well in their new home.
Enjoy your grasses
This Port Moody homeowner gets a gold star for leaving her Miscanthus ornamental grass standing so it can ornament the neighbourhood. I drove by today and it looked awesome moving in the breeze with fresh snow on the ground. Cut it back in roughly two months before the new growth starts appearing.
Take a good look at your garden in winter and do some easy maintenance when you get a chance. Spring is coming!
