What fantastic weather we are having after the last two winters! The surprise mild winter days continue into mid-February in the Baltimore/Washington area. Usually, we do not plant for customers in January and February as the ground is frozen solid, and winter wind chills may damage new transplants. As expected, we experienced about 10 days of hard winter in late December and early January.
The farm’s ground was frozen a few inches deep here at Pryor’s Nursery. Suddenly, the weather dramatically changed! We did something we could not do in 36 years of green industry fieldwork. We started planting successfully in late January and into February. The surprise arrival of a mild winter enabled us to achieve this. Now, we have over 600 new small Green Giants removed from winter storage and planted in fields. This time of year, no watering is needed for planting. Keeping our organic planting mix undercover from rain/snow in the winter enables us to use dry soil for our plantings when the earth is gooey from winter rains.
The surprisingly mild winter caught us by surprise. I called this one wrong, as we could have been installing living fences for customers most of the winter! However, we got caught a few days with our garden tools in the snow. Mother Nature can be unpredictable, and clearly, this winter’s surprise mild weather was unexpected!
Interested to learn more about the winter advantage evergreens have over deciduous trees?
Pictures of our Winter Nursery Plantings.
About the Author: Wade Pryor is a professional botanist and the founder of Pryor’s Nursery . Since 1981, he has installed over 82,000 evergreen trees, specializing in “Living Fence” privacy screens across the Mid-Atlantic region. Learn more about Wade’s expertise here.
