Winter and Your Plants

From what I've seen on Facebook and at the garden centers, folks are itching to get back out into their yards and do some gardening. However for those of us in the Upper Midwest, winter just finally set in. There's been cold wind and snow to shovel, so it's hardly the right time to be out in the yard tending our flowers.

So if we aren't tending to our plants, what's happening to them out there in the cold? What good is winter anyway?

Vernalization is the process which enables our annuals to flower after prolonged periods of cold temperatures. In other words, some of our plants would not be able to flower without the winter. Perennials and some trees also need a prolonged period of cold to break dormancy and enable flowering. wiki

Stratification and Scarification is the process which enables certain kinds of seed to germinate. The cold temperatures can scarify seeds because of how water/moisture behaves when the temperature changes. The expanding and contracting of the moisture can scarify the outer shell of the seeds helping them to germinate. For other plants the cold weather is more like a trigger. The seeds "know" that after X number of cold weeks, followed by warmer temperatures that it's time to come out. We can accomplish this by stratifying our seeds in the refrigerator or by planting seed in the fall.

Snow is also important to plants in the winter. While the upper portion of many plants is dormant during the winter, roots are still active. The roots receive insulation and moisture from the snow, which help to keep the plant alive.

In other words, while we feel trapped inside, the environment is doing a good job tending to our native plants all winter long.