The garden under snow

With the best part of a foot of snow over the last few weeks and the temperatures mostly staying below freezing, the garden has spent much of January under a bed of snow.

A blanket of white is actually a blessing for the plants that are covered by it. Snow consists mostly of air and, because it’s trapped by the crystals of ice, retains much of the heat released by the ground. Thus, the layer of snow acts as insulation and the temperature below it tends to stay fairly close to freezing even if it’s much colder in the air above. This can be of real benefit to plants that are only just hardy in our zone or first year perennials that can’t survive quite as much cold yet as when they mature.

Hopefully the next few mild days we have won’t melt the protective layer of snow too much as next weekend is forecast to have several nights of single digit cold!

Enjoy the photos below taken by Brian Thompson.

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Mulch your Christmas tree at MulchFest!

mulchfest-treecycle-2014

Bringing your Christmas tree to the garden will guarantee its continued use in the form of mulch which will be used in the garden and around the neighbourhood. Don’t let your tree end up in the trash!

TreeCycle/Mulch Fest 2015 is part of an annual, city wide program organised by New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, the New York City Department of Sanitation, and GreeNYC to recycle your Christmas trees into wood chips. For more info on the program, go to the MulchFest site.

Prospect Heights Community Farm will be one of the many places to drop off your Christmas tree throughout the city. We’ll be collecting trees and chipping them into mulch on Saturday and Sunday the 10th and 11th of January from 10 am to 2 pm. That gives you a few days from twelfth night on the 5th of January to lug your tree over to the garden.

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