It’s time to put your Western Washington garden to bed until spring

The beginning of November is time to put the garden to bed and pull a blanket of mulch around tender plants. There is still time to plant spring blooming bulbs and transplant trees and shrubs as they go dormant. This is also the week to dig up and store your tender bulbs and make sure tropical plants are protected.

Cannas, dahlias and gladiolas are examples of tender bulbs. They grow from swollen, bulb-like roots or bulbs that can freeze and die during a harsh winter. During the month of November, the top growth of these plants will turn yellow then die once the weather becomes frosty. That is your cue to dig in and uproot the plant exposing the bulb. You can cut the dying top growth or foliage from the bulb and store just the roots.

There are many methods for storing dahlias, cannas and gladiolas in Western Washington. An unheated garage or shed is usually protection enough for these bulbs to survive as our winters are mild. They just need a spot that will keep them cold but not freezing. One method is to place the dug bulbs into a paper grocery bag; the paper allows them to breathe but keeps the bulbs slightly moist over the winter. Leaving the bulbs in a bucket with a bit of peatmoss or soil clinging to the roots has also been used with success as long as the bulbs or corms stay cold but not freezing.

If you like to gamble but have missed out on trips to Vegas or to the local casino due to the coronavirus, now is your chance to play with Lady Luck. The stakes you’ll be handling are those used to hold up your dahlias. Once you remove the dahlia stakes and cut the dahlia tops to ground level, just cover the soil over your dahlias with sword fern fronds weighted down with a rock or use a tarp on top of the soil to keep out moisture. Keeping the winter rains from rotting your dahlias is often enough protection to keep them alive over the winter.

Even the tropical canna bulbs can be overwintered while still in the ground or in pots as long as you keep the soil dry over the winter. All bets are off if we have a deep freeze, but you could hit the lazy gardener’s jackpot this spring if your tender bulbs survive using the “no-dig-just-cover” gardening gamble.

Q. We have a large leaf maple tree that drops a lot of leaves. We rake these leaves so they don’t’ kill the grass. What is your method for saving these maple leaves and using them next spring? I do not have a compost pile. _— H.L., Sumner

A. Leaf mold sounds ugly but is a beautiful soil conditioner free for the making every autumn. You don’t need a compost pile if you stuff large garbage bags with fallen leaves and add two important elements. The first is a shovel full of soil or compost to inoculate the fallen leaves with dirt critters that will break down the foliage. The second element you need is air holes poked into the leaf bags to keep the soil critters happy.

Now just store the leaf bags out of site until spring. Once the leaves rot over the winter, the mixture will contain white filaments of mold inside the partially decaying leaves and this is nature’s stimulus plan to improve the growth of your plants by feeding the soil. Just spread the molding, moist, leafy contents of the bags on top of your trees and shrubs in April and you will be smothering small weeds while you improve the soil around your plants.

You can also add handfuls of leaf mold to regular potting soil to increase the ability of soil to hold water and absorb nutrients. Fallen foliage is nature’s way of recycling nutrients.

Q. You posted a photo of Japanese anemone on Facebook and said it was a fall bloomer for dry shade. I have found anmone blanda bulbs for sale but it says they bloom in the spring not the fall. The flowers look the same. Are the anemone blanda bulbs good for dry shade just like the Japanese anemone plant? — A.O., Enumclaw

A. Nope and glad you asked. Japanese anemone or Anemone hupehensis (the ones that I posted on social media from my fall garden) are perennial plants that grow up to 4 feet tall and flower in late summer and into the fall. They can be a very invasive perennial that comes back year after year in larger clumps that spread from underground roots. I only grow them in the dry shade near cedar trees so they won’t take over the landscape.

The spring flowering bulbs for sale now called anemone blanda are related but known as windflower and grow close to the ground and bloom in the spring. There are also wood anemone or Anemone nemerosa with smaller blooms as they are wild flowers that do well in Western Washington gardens. Like the Anemone blanda the wood anemone hug the ground and flower in the spring and will spread nicely to give a floral carpet effect.

All of the anemones you plant as bulbs now are woodland plants that enjoy some shade and moisture in the soil. They are not as drought resistant or as shade tolerant as the perennial Japanese anemone that flowers in the fall. I suggest you buy those anemone bulbs and plant them anyway. When spring arrives, you can’t have too many anemone.

Reach Marianne Binetti through her website at binettigarden.com or write to her at P.O. Box 872, Enumclaw WA 98022.

This story was originally published October 31, 2020 at 7:45 AM.