Winter Green
After the first good frost has wiped out your gorgeous annuals, you begin to think about how plain and boring it will be for your bed(s) to sit all winter, mulched but empty.
Here is one cool idea for what you can do.
Take cuttings from evergreens and stick the stems down through the mulch and into the ground. If your Christmas tree can stay green and last for two months in a warm dry home, how much more will your "greens" last outside where it is cool (if not cold).
There are many ways that this can be done and several good sources for materials.
Sizes can range from creating the appearance of large evergreen shrubs, often utilizing several branches from a tree to create one "evergreen bush" . . . to stuffing taxis cuttings into toilet paper tubes and creating designs, patterns, or spelling words.
Cuttings can be gathered from members of gardening clubs or organizations, and can also be obtained by keeping a close relationship with some of the local tree trimmers who could notify you of when they will be cutting evergreens down.
Along the main drive here in west Dayton (Ohio), I had created and maintained some 35 flower beds. When winter came and my mums had finally frozen, I placed evergreen cuttings in many of my more prominent beds and people driving by would have sworn that they were growing there,
The material is free and the only cost is a little extra time to put them out and then collect them in the spring.
At one church where the Pastor had just died, I first went in and (trans)planted Naked Lady lilies that were just about to open. After a week when the had faded, my daughter and I went in and planted sedum in the shape of a cross. When cold weather arrived and the sedum had died back, I went back and re-formed the cross by stuffing taxis cuttings into a large number of toilet paper tubes. I pulled back the mulch and slit the dirt and placed the tubes single file to form the cross which was about four feet wide and six feet tall. I then carefully trimmed the taxis cuttings so that the cross was squared and even. The cross stayed green all winter long and when spring came I was so busy that, since it still looked nice, I left it there. By summer, the needles had turned a beautiful orange and still looked attractive, so I left it there. When I finally took it out over a year later, I was quite surprised to discover that several of the cuttings were still green and had indeed rooted. That was from stuffing them in toilet paper tubes and burying them in the mulch . . . .AND NEVER BEING WATERED ONCE !!
Be creative, try it, you will be pleasantly surprised . . .and let me know how it works.
BTW: Yucca plants are usually evergreen and many species have beautiful leaves. I move these into some of my beds as other plants die back. I also keep them in some of my beds year round, but I keep them in pots as the roots can be quite a problem.
