Perennial plants from the asparagus family, called hosts, are very often used to decorate personal plots. These deciduous plants blend in well with flowers and create excellent compositions. When caring for plantings, gardeners are wondering if the host needs to be cut for the winter. We will devote an article to the answer.
Attractiveness and diversity
Gardeners like the gardeners for their elegance and splendor. These plants have many faces, so it is easy to choose the right variety for any garden composition. They impress with the attractiveness of their leaves, the color and shape of which depends on the host variety. Flowers can be bluish, violet, white, pinkish. They are very beautiful, collected in a socket.
Leaves of the host are painted in various colors - from gray-blue to bright yellow. Unfortunately, the color of the leaves changes with the onset of frost. With the advent of cold weather, magnificent spreading plants begin to fade. Do I need to prune hosta leaves for the winter?
Before answering this question, we will consider what activities should be carried out in the fall as part of plant care.
Autumn works
Is the host pruned for the winter, and what measures are necessary when preparing plants for the cold?
The culture is unpretentious and does not require complicated thorough personal care. However, you should not think that you can ignore these plantings. Of course, the plant feels great in sunny and dark places, it does not need frequent watering and fertilizer. But preparation for winter frosts is necessary, especially when it comes to the average climatic zone of Russia.
Do I need to trim the host for the winter? Florists answer this question in the affirmative. But in this direction there are some nuances.
Pruning is carried out along with other autumn plant care activities, which include:
- mulching;
- shelter;
- transplant - if necessary.
Let us dwell in more detail at each stage.
Stalk cutting
Many gardeners, answering the question of whether the host should be pruned before winter, say that it is necessary to remove all the leaves of the plant. Others disagree with this and offer to remove only some of the stems.
With the advent of cold weather, you need to remove the stems on which the flowers grew. So the plant will not form seeds and can save energy for the future growing season. And during a frosty winter, nutrients are essential!
Using a secateurs, the florist gently cuts the stems. The remaining foliage is better not to touch. There are several reasons for this:
- due to cold weather, the hosta leaves will dry out and become a natural mulch for planting, as well as protect root structures from freezing;
- trimming all foliage at the same time is a huge stress for the plant.
If you cut off all the leaves at once, the host will try to build them up, spending a lot of effort on this process. Having weakened, the plant may not endure the winter cold.
When to cut the host for the winter? The process can begin with the appearance of yellow leaves, but should be in time before morning frost.
Some garden owners prune the host when spring arrives. It is believed that this pruning allows the plant to successfully overwinter, while maintaining its own strength. In the spring, when new shoots appear, you can remove last year's.
Now it’s becoming clearer whether the host needs to be trimmed for the winter. What other procedures should be carried out in the fall?
Mulching
Drying naturally, the leaves will be an excellent mulching layer for the plant. But often gardeners use additional shelters in the form of organic matter. For this purpose, lapnik, brushwood, sawdust, peat are suitable. To avoid the appearance of parasites in the mulch, as well as the development of various pathologies, the material should be treated with Fitosporin-M.
Mulch can also be processed with tobacco dust. The smell of tobacco does not tolerate snails and slugs. These garden dwellers pose the greatest danger to the host. The sheltering process will help protect the roots of the plant from freezing.
Shelter
Hosts do not need any special shelter. It is enough to protect the roots from frost. Mulching material will do the job perfectly.
Fans of fully pruned foliage say that hosta leaves will be an excellent mulching coating. This is true, but it should be borne in mind that this approach can cause the development of various pathologies.
It is not necessary to use roofing material or film as a shelter. Materials do not breathe, so hosts can die under such shelter. In addition, rodents like to settle under such shelters.
Transplanting and feeding
Some gardeners transplant the plant in the fall. This is not always justified, because the root structures may not have time to adapt in a new place, and the plant will die during the onset of cold weather.
Transplanting hosts is better to postpone until spring and not take risks. But if the autumn is warm and there is no threat of frost, a transplant can be performed. To do this, plants are moved with a lump of earth, so as not to damage the roots.
Also, do not fertilize hosts in the fall. The use of nutrients will cause the active development of the plant, and this makes no sense before the meeting of winter. Hosts have enough spring and summer dressings.
So, we answered the question of whether the host should be cut for the winter. This unpretentious plant requires attention in the autumn. Pruning and other procedures are necessary to prepare plantings for the arrival of winter and help them survive the cold period.
Hosts winter well, they are frost-resistant. However, these properties will manifest themselves if the grower provides proper care to the plants and does not make common mistakes in this process.