Sorry to hear you lost many perennials. The fact that they were not yet well-established may have been a factor. It's a good idea, especially with new plants, to make sure they enter winter dormancy well-hydrated.

Our perennials fared very well, even the ones in pots still awaiting planting (though there were mulched with a healthy layer of fallen leaves). The fig tree and several hydrangeas suffered, but grew back nicely, and one weigelia is going to take some time to recover.

This year's winter prep will be the same as always: rake out the fallen leaves (mostly oak), shred them, and put them back in the beds, supplemented with shredded leaves from the lawn. The shredder reduces the leaves to one-tenth their original volume, so it takes a lot of leaves to get a good 2-3" of mulch.

Hope you have better luck with your plants this winter, and I'm glad to see someone else trying to get this forum active again!

I have some herbs in pots - lavendar, sage, thyme and Russian sage. I'll be surprised if they make it thru the winter.
I didn't have the ability to put them in the ground this season, so... they're on their own.

The microclimate makes a big difference.
the community garden where I garden is in a wide open space, and everything freezes usually about 10 days before things in the city freeze, where they are more sheltered.

hmmm.. I'm going to see if I can drag my pots to the shelter of one of the little sheds in the garden.

good your plants did well. If they survived last winter, I bet they can survive anything.

Dragging pots to sheltered place will help. Covering them with leaves will help more.
I am lazy and let the fallen leaves stay on perennial beds without shredding them. It's been working for me.
You are lucky to have a community garden in your area. Wish there was one in my neck of the woods -sounds like fun.

Sheltered and mulched is even better! The mulch helps keep the soil temperature more stable. In mild spells during winter, those pots can really warm up in the sun.

When I had the time and energy, I'd dig a trench and set the pots in the trench, refilling around them, then adding a good layer of mulch. But things have gone well without all that work these past two winters, so I'm taking the lazy way out and hoping for the best.

Because we have so many oak leaves, which are really tough, I find that the shredding makes a big difference. When left in the garden whole, they'd create a thick, wet mat atop my plants, often with slimy mold growing between them, but they'd still take forever to break down. The shredded leaves make a light, fluffy mulch, don't mat down, and decompose more quickly, enriching my very sandy soil.

Access to a community garden is great; wish we had one here, too. Jerseygirl, any chance you could get one started in your area?

Actually, I was searching on line today and found a food bank nearby that also has a community garden. I will reach out to them and volunteer to help. Looking forward to that!

Jerseygirl,
glad you found a community garden!

We have a few community gardens in my area - Middlesex County. They always have a waiting list. I wish they would make more.

I've been gardening at this one for 13 years. It's changed my life; once I started gardening, it became a passion. I don't have a yard, and even people with a yard sometimes cannot grow what they want to bec. they are shaded. Our garden is full-sun.

we have a problem with critters, but I grow herbs which are mostly safe from scavaging, and I try to find annuals and perenniels that are not too tasty to the groundhog. :)

to agardenstateofmind. In my experience, there's no need to shred oak leaves (they curl) as they do NOT mat like maples or ginkos (I have over 2 dozen different perrenials/ephemeral species that have no problem coming up each and every spring) nor do they even remotely get slimey. I've used this approach for well over 30 years (with over a dozen mature oaks in the 60' class on the property and over 2 dozen saplings (to 15') which will replace some of those old girls when their time has come, and you know what? There's never enough oak leaves as come spring time - you look and say to yourself, where did it all go? And I selectively take oak leaves put at street side of my neighbors (as long as they don't have a lawn treatment program through the year).

Mulching one's oak leaves is GREAT for the gardens (as you're not throwing away your leaves which is a good thing) and especially so if you grow rhodies, azaleas, montain laurels, viburnum, evergreens etc.

This post was edited by birdsong72 on Fri, Dec 26, 14 at 6:41

Birdsong, it saves a lot of time and effort if you have found that shredding is not necessary, however, in the 36 years I've been gardening here, I've found the shredding to be beneficial - well worth the time and effort. When we purchased this small property (50x150), there was hardly anything living in this very fine, sandy soil - not even weeds or ants, let alone worms and other garden beneficials. The soil is now much improved and things are thriving.

This is a wooded area, with many oak trees on neighboring properties as well as my own. As stated before, the thick blanket of oak leaves "When left in the garden whole ... create a thick, wet mat atop my plants, often with slimy mold growing between them, but they'd still take forever to break down. The shredded leaves make a light, fluffy mulch, don't mat down, and decompose more quickly, enriching my very sandy soil."

I have an even smaller property 40 x 100. I let the oak leaves pile up in the fall around the shrubs, perennials & veggie patch but do wish I had a leaf shredder. I would love to dig the leaves into the soil in the spring, but it's just too difficult to get the unshredded leaves dug in, owing to tight quarters. I usually end up raking the leaves off. If they were shredded I think it would be easier to dig in. Trying to downsize but am thinking of investing in a shredder; the lawn mower just doesn't do it.

Jerseygirl, I don't even dig them in. Once the plants leaf out, the mulch is pretty much hidden, and by fall it's becoming part of the soil.

Somewhere we heard/read you can shred them in a barrel with a string trimmer. LOL ... we burned out the motor that way. Used the mower method, but my lawn guy (eldest son) was not happy with the uneven size of the resulting mulch. When a second-hand shredder became available, I gave it a try and everyone was/is happy.