I’m not a fan of winter. Snow means less work and thus less pay. It’s cold outside and I always wish we had more light. Also, my normally stress-free commute to work annoys me in winter.
Then there is January, that post-holiday time when nothing seems to happen in the landscape. I almost feel bad for January. It’s like a quick stop-over on the way to February when spring isn’t that far away.
On my darkest days I dream about picking free bananas on a beach in Costa Rica.
Winter colour
Right now only Hellebores display their flowers. Last year they got buried by record amounts of snow but, luckily, this year we get to enjoy them. Luckily.
Sarcococcas will soon spread their sweet scent all over our winter landscape where the designers were smart enough to mass plant them. You will smell them before you even notice them.
And Viburnum bodnantense are also showing their cute white and pink flowers.
Pet peeve
There is no lawn care in winter which means it’s fairly quiet. We have important tree work to do now that the branch structures are clearly visible. Since we maintain the same trees every year, we can take our time by making only so many cuts every year.
One other important landscape maintenance task in winter is deep edging. Since it involves a lot of labour it’s a great task for winter when there isn’t any lawn care.
It just so happens that our company foremen can take liberties with our bed and tree well edges. All trucks have blade edger attachments and spare blades but in practice, most workers prefer to quickly vertical their bed edges and move on. Oh, the horror. This is one of my top pet peeves.
Spade and ninety degrees
Then I come in armed with a decent spade to make corrections that will last past spring lawn care start up. It’s very simple. Drive the spade into your edges at precisely ninety degrees, put your foot behind the spade to avoid rounding off the edge and clean up whatever chunks you create. Clean-up should include weeds.
The clean-up should be sharp, just like your new deep edges. Remove all grass chunks and beat up any soil clumps for a nice, even look.
Doughnuts
If you find there is too much excess soil in your tree wells then just move it to nearby beds. And remember the correct look for tree wells: doughnut!
The soil should start at the root flare and finish at the edge without burying it. Thus the doughnut look where most of the soil is between the edge and the root flare. Never create ‘pyramids’ by mounding soil above the root flare. This just leads to many problems.
When I go home from a site with freshly renovated bed edges, I sleep very well knowing that the site looks sharp. Give it a try if your strata site or garden doesn’t have sharp edges.
