I planted a bunch of nice things in my garden this year, and now that winter is coming I’m not sure what to do in order to help them survive. I have artemisia (silver mound), daylilies, echinacea, and gaillardia in my garden, as well as some herbs in a windowbox-style planter on my patio. They’re all perennials (except for the herbs, I think?) and I know they should come back next year, but do I need to do anything special? Cut them back? How far? They’ve got really woody stems, especially the artemisia, which got pretty squished by a fallen tree, and the gaillardia, which got so tall I couldn’t really keep them upright with a simple stake, so they flopped under their own weight and grew horizontally. I think I’ll have to move them in the spring to a place where I can tie them to a trellis or something.
Will my herbs come back? I have sage, basil, oregano, and parsley. If they won’t, can someone recommend a tutorial on how to pick and dry them for use in the winter? I would like to transplant them to pots and grow them indoors, but I tried that last year and I don’t have enough light to keep them going, and no good place to install plant lights.
You shouldn’t have any trouble with the day lilies and coneflower (echinacea). The gaillardia is an aggressive self-seeder, so if you let it do its thing, you should have lots of offspring next year, even if the parent doesn’t survive.
Don’t know much about herbs, although I know basil isn’t hardy. If it’s still alive, I’d suggest picking what’s left, making pesto and freezing it.
Sage and oregano will survive the winter. Basil won’t. If your parsley is like our parsley it will survive the winter, but bolt as soon as things warm up in the spring. I’d advise you to let it be and enjoy it over the winter, then till it up without a second thought when it’s time to re-seed in the spring.
I didn’t winterize my garden (zone 5) at all last winter, and the gaillardia, echinacea and daylilies all did just fine. At SOME point you want to cut back the old dead stems (ditto for your sage and oregano btw) but I think there’s no reason to bother yourself now. Save it for springtime when you’re dying to be outside and garden.
Silver mound artemisia, daylilies, echinacea, and gaillardia all do fine in my Zone 3 yard without any special treatment - I don’t cut them back until spring. They usually have a snow cover all winter - I’d probably cover them with mulch if they won’t get a snow cover. Or not - those are some seriously tough plants. I tend to trim back the plants once they start showing signs of life in spring - just a little bit of life, not too much - you don’t want to cut off the new growth.
I brought some of my herbs inside this winter, and they’re thriving with a plant light - I just put a bulb in a desk lamp. Now, if I can just get rid of the damned aphids…
All of the perennials can be cut back close to the ground once a hard freeze kills the top growth. It’s easier to do that than to wait until spring, when you have damp rotten stems that are tougher to cut, plus then you risk cutting into new sprouting growth.
If Gaillardia is tall and toppling over, it’s a sign that there isn’t enough sun, or else too much water/fertilizer.
The area doesn’t have great drainage and gets waterlogged after big rains - maybe I’ll move them in the spring. They’re definitely getting enough sun, and I only hit them with one shot of MiracleGro when I first planted them in the spring. Thanks for the info.