Preparing my garden for winter

[J Smith]

This will be my first winter with some of the plants in my garden, as I only built it in Spring 2009. I chose plants that should be able to survive the frosts we get, but I now find myself thinking about preparing for winter.

All plants are in the ground. I basically don't want to cut anything I don't have to, but I also don't want to lose any plants or material that could have been harvested. Can anyone with experience growing the following in frosty winters answer my questions?

Passiflora Incarnata - http://www.erowid.or...l#PASSIONFLOWER

Each year before the frost kills it, the entire vine may be cut back to the ground.

If I don't cut it down, the leaves will drop but come spring will it regrow from the base or from the naked vines? If it grows back from the naked vines I'd prefer to leave it uncut.

Artemisia Absinthium -

Can't seem to find anything that I would call reliable, but it appears harvest should be before winter. Some sources suggest that it will die back, but others suggest it is frost hardy. What can I expect?

Any comments/additions are most welcome.

Thanks in advance

Edited March 23, 2010 by madhouses visites

[Quill]

I had a passiflora vine growing at my old place, not sure if it was incarnata. It didn't really like the frosty cold, I remember seeing it covered in a frost, but it's still going today. Depends on how bad the frost is gonna be though. I seem to remember that there seemed to be continued growth from the vine.

I love the passiflora flowers, stunning architechtural blooms. I remember eating the flowers for a nice placebo maoi effect

Edited March 23, 2010 by Quilliam

[blip]

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Edited April 5, 2010 by lsdreamz

[Maurice]

Artemisia is fully frost hardy. They love it here in Snowy Mts.

Harvest when coming into flower.

[Alice]

If I remember correctly, the P incarnata shoots from the base after winter, rather than from the remaining defoliated vine. At least on a young vine it did.

The artemisia will be fine through winter.

Edited March 23, 2010 by Alice

[Quill]

i'd probly take Alice's advice over mine.

[s4L]

Last winter my P incarnata died back to the ground where the winter is only mild. Leaves yellow and fall then the vine dies back to the ground to reshoot in spring.

I've just been harvesting my P incarnata and found that just cutting the leaves off and not the vine leaving several leaves on the tip caused the leaves to regrow from the nodes.

This was some weeks after flowering. I think it would yield more leaf as the framework is already there as compared to it reshooting. Perhaps before flowering in summer would be the best time, rather than autumn.

[Mycot]

Provide a really thick mulch at least six inches.

This provides insulation and dramatically reduces wild fluctuations in ground temperatures.

[J Smith]

Thanks everyone

[J Smith]

The worst of winter is over and the cactus are showing signs of growing. Time to record my experiences.

The winter seemed milder and wetter than normal, but I haven't checked BOM. We definitely experienced frosts.

Every single one of my trichs are fine. I left them all out in the elements and only 2 or 3 have some very minor tip rotting which now appears to be growing out. Some are in the ground, most are in pots. Only the ones in pots show any signs of rot.

One or two ornamental cactus, including a Myrtillocactus geometrizans, are now dead, falling off the ledge they were on so they ended up upside-down for a couple of days before I rescued them certainly didn't help. A 2m pilocereus I inherited from a non-frost area in Sydney in about April was kept dry undercover throughout winter but is now showing signs of weeping black rot. I don't think the rot is due to too much water as I stopped watering it about 4 months before it appeared so I wonder whether it could be due to the cold? I will continue to keep it dry and it should hopefully be OK.

The Passionflower lost all of it's leaves but, just before winter set in, a new shoot sprouted from the root ball. This kept it's leaves over winter and I suspect that it will go off over the next couple of weeks.

My passionfruit vine has gone yellow but has only dropped a small number of leaves.

I lost an (already sick - rescued from Bunnings) Stevia very early.

The Artemisia Absinthium appears more healthy now than 6 months ago. Other Artemisia spp. I've see around the traps look like they've been around for many a year.

I kept my Bih Jolokia and Naga Morich undercover but outside. I watered them occasionally. The Bih lost most of it's leaves but kept some, I am confident it will recover. The Naga lost nearly every leaf but may come good yet.

The fact the chillis remain alive shocked me the most! I fully expected them to succumb to the elements.

[Sola]

I really appreciate this information. I've had some plants die on my because of the cold.

Few good ideas to implement before next winter. My passiflora incarnata also seemed to die back to

ground level before re-sprouting a week ago. This one was over wintered inside it's first year but

will either go in the ground or in the ground in a grow tunnel now.

Cheers

Sola