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Winter gardening ideas  |
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Winter days are short and often dreary in Western New York. For the avid, willing gardener there are jobs worth taking on during the winter months to ensure a smooth slide from winter back into spring and summer.
Here are a few ideas for you to consider tying during the winter months.
Cold weather pruning: Pruning can actually be done just about any time of the year. For a number of deciduous species of trees and shrubs, late fall and into early winter (after the leaves have fallen) is the best time to prune. Birch, walnut, maples and dogwood fall into this category. When buds begin to swell in late winter or early spring they are likely to ooze sap or bleed when they are pruned. Any warm spell during winter will generally cause buds to swell, as well as causing the rapid upward movement of sap. Oozing sap is unsightly and may on occasion be an entry point for bacterial infections as well as an attraction to certain insects.
Pest problems and disease: Caterpillars are occasionally spotted on Douglas firs throughout the fall and winter. These are not the tent caterpillars or fall webworms that infest all sorts of deciduous trees in the spring and fall. They are the larvae of the tiger moth or silver-spotted Halisidota. The caterpillars have brownish-black bodies with brown heads and bristly dark brown hairs. Accessible branches may be clipped off and the worms killed or disposed of in the garbage. They can also be left alone, since the buds are never eaten and new growth from these will generally cover the damaged areas by summer. They really don't cause serious damage so the use of chemicals is unnecessary.
Azalea Gall is a problem that can appear over the winter months on azaleas. They are light green and fleshy, ranging in size from a small pea up to the size of a hazel nut and are fungal in origin. Swollen tissues and old blackened growths of the same can be removed by hand and destroyed. Do not recycle these or any leaves appearing to have other fungal problems, (i.e. most commonly powdery mildew) into compost piles. They are best burned or deposited in the trash. Benomyl, or Daconil applied according to directions will bring this problem under control.
To have a prodigious crop on your fruit trees, they should be sprayed during the fall and early winter after the leaves have dropped, to help deal with the spores of the peach leaf curl fungus. Fruit leaf curl causes thickened, distorted growth of the leaves in spring. The actual invasion of the primordial leaf tissues occurs in the bud during winter, and then spores are deposited on the bud scales during the summer. They must be killed before they have a chance to move under the scales and invade the leaf tissue. Once this happens, the disease cannot be controlled.
Plant pathologists recommend the first spray be applied sometime during mid to late December and again three weeks later. A final application six weeks after your first spray will help control this insidious disease. Spray thoroughly. Wet all twigs, branches and trunk with either a lime sulfur, Daconil or copper spray.
Your winter garden can be every bit as exciting as it is in the warmer months. With a little planning and forethought, winter doesn't have to dissolve into traditional holiday lights and candles for excitement. The effervescence of natural winter color can upstage them all.
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