TIMOTHY DALY: Preparing your landscape for colder weather

Though the weather is still warm, the colder weather months will be on us soon. Now is an excellent time to begin preparing the home landscape for wintertime.

The best thing we can do is to select plants for our landscape that are winter hardy in our area. Remember that we are in USDA hardiness zone 7b. That means that the average annual minimum temperature can be in the range of 5 degrees to 10 degrees. In recent years, we have been warmer. Before buying plants, check the nursery tag or ask the clerk if the plant is adapted for USDA zone 7b. Most of our local nurseries will only carry plants suitable for our area. However, some larger nurseries and garden centers may get shipments of plants adapted for warmer winter temperatures to our south in Zone 8, with many not adapted to our area. When our winters are relatively warm, the cold is not as important. Unfortunately, those plants are living on borrowed time. When a “normal” cold winter arrives, they will either die or receive an unacceptable amount of winter injury, such as the unseasonally cold weather in December 2022. For example, oleanders, loquats, and cycads are better adapted to zone 8, such as South Georgia. In this case, the answer may be to plant the bushes in a protected site. If you plant them next to the wall of a home where they get afternoon sun, they will perform much better. The house will shelter them from cold north winds, and the wall will radiate heat in the early evenings. Apply a two-to-four-inch layer of organic mulch, such as pine straw or pine bark mulch, to help insulate the roots.