This time of year we begin to place brush, hay bales and leaves around the properties we steward.
Our goal is two fold, firstly protect the plants from February’s low warm sun. As the sun sits on the landscape it warms up a little, with each day the freeze thaw affects the fine root hairs and cuts the plant off from its nutrient source, the soil.
Come spring, the plant heaves out of the ground, bare root and vulnerable. Typically the plant dies, a novice gardener may try to squish it back into place. What should you do? Dig it out with a large amount if its surroundings, then dig an even bigger hole and place the entire soil zone into the earth backfill to the appropriate level and water well. This ensures any root to soil connection does not become severed again and health will persist. Don’t forget to inoculate the hole with mycorrhizal fungi and feed well with our Abundance fertilizer. The brush skirt will shade the garden from the suns effects and will keep the plants consistently frozen all year long.
Secondly, trapping snow and rain at the root zone ensures the plant does not dehydrate over winter. Check out your garden and see which plants you have which might need protection this winter, newly planted this year, young specimens and ornamentals can all use a good layer of protection. Bonus, if you lay leaves first then some straw, under the brush you will also be feeding the soil food web, and encouraging a healthy “poop loop”, carbon sequestration is another benefit to the global community!
