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For many garden-minded Portlanders, with winter comes a certain degree of anxiety. Winter—overwhelmingly overcast, eternally mulchy, and sometimes encased in ice—presents all manner of frigid challenges to even the greenest of thumbs.
Landscaping your home is one thing, caring for it through an unpredictable winter is something else. “The number one thing is maybe to unlearn some things you’ve always heard about winter,” says Tari Gunstone, owner of Wildscape Gardens, which specializes in not only biodiverse, ecologically driven, habitat-supporting garden design but also garden coaching and maintenance. “There’s a greater awareness in Portland for creating habitats and rewilding the garden. It all comes back to your own enjoyment too, because when you create a garden, you’re creating a lot of life.”
Which is all to say, despite any preconceived notions about landscaping in the Northwest, maintaining a year-round botanical wonderland is realistic. In fact, with the right mindset, gardens tended by novices and varsity plant enthusiasts alike can thrive through even the iciest of grayscale winter seasons.
We caught up with Gunstone to learn more about how to best cultivate our winter yardscapes and tips for nurturing outdoor spaces through these chilly months.
Let Things Be
“I see a lot of people cutting down all their dead flower heads and their perennials, but it’s super beneficial to leave that stuff until spring because the birds eat the seed heads,” Gunstone says. “Some of the hollowed stems, leaf cutter bees will live inside, so there’s a lot of opportunity for habitat in a messy winter garden.”
The bottom line is that gardenscapers can actually do less work than they might think. “Don’t rake up your leaves unless you know they’re in the way—leave your leaves as a mulch,” Gunstone advises. “Don’t cut back your perennials; you also don’t want to prune most things before the winter hits because when you cut a branch, it leaves it susceptible to rot when the rains are coming.”
Cozy Up More Fragile Foliage
“There’s certain plants you want to protect in the winter,” Gunstone says. “Last winter was probably our worst for plants in 60 years because of the subfreezing winds and ice storm.”
But protective fixes are relatively easy, Gunstone says. “You could get some frost cloth from a local nursery and cover up your plants, or even just use some upside-down nursery pots.”
Knowing which plants are tender for our zone is crucial as well, she adds. “We’re Zone 8. If the forecast is colder than freezing or even 20 degrees, things can start looking kind of sad.”
The bottom line is calm vigilance, Gunstone says. “Gardening is a lot about patience and observation.”
Get in Sync With the Season
“I think it’s a good time to take inventory and do some journaling about what you enjoyed about last year’s garden and allow it to be a time for planning,” Gunstone suggests. “I like to echo what the garden’s doing in my own life, following the seasons kind of internally. Winter is a time to kind of be inside; you don’t have to be out in your garden. Allow that to be a time of dormancy for yourself, but also excitement about the spring and planning ahead.”
For gardeners hoping to enter spring with rich, healthy soil, Gunstone suggests the additional step of employing a simple ground cover for the winter months: “Something like winter peas or crimson clover basically fills your bed so that there’s not a lot of weeds coming in, the roots add nitrogen and nutrients to the soil giving it a fertilizer boost over the winter that also keeps the weeds away.”
Oregon Winter is Willamette Week’s annual winter activity magazine. It is free and can be found all over Portland beginning Friday, December 13, 2024. Find your free copy at one of the locations noted here, before they all get picked up!