Is there anything I can do to prevent my dwarf Alberta spruce from burning this winter?
Dwarf Alberta spruces are famous for scalding in the winter. It doesn't take much for their tiny needles to dry out thanks to the harsh effects of the sun and the wind during a time of year when the plant is not actively growing.
Fortunately there are a couple of things you can do to make sure that your spruce makes it through the winter with its needles intact. The first thing you can do is wrap it in burlap, which will protect the needles from the ravages of the wind and sun. If the plant is in a particularly windy place, you may also want to put up a windbreak. (Or move your spruce to another location. Dwarf Alberta spruces and wind are not a match made in heaven.)
If you’re still watering your spruce then you need to stop. As a general rule, you never water, fertilize, or prune any of your plants this time of year. Doing so only encourages them to put on new growth that will inevitably die back as soon as the frigid temperatures hit. The one possible exception to this rule is if we get no rainfall between now and the end of November and the ground still hasn’t frozen. In that case, your plants will be carrying too little water into the winter and that can cause a different sort of winter damage.
If you apply burlap and refrain from watering, fertilizing, and pruning this time of year, your spruce should make it through the winter with no significant problems. Then you simply need to remove the burlap early next spring so that it doesn't interfere with the plant's ability to put on new growth.
It sometimes happens that the burlap comes partially undone at some point during the winter or you forget to put it on at all. If that happens and your spruce scalds despite your best intentions, don't do anything until you see the first signs of new growth on your plant next spring. Sometimes the damage isn't as bad as it first appears and if you panic and cut out the brown stems before the plant has a chance to regenerate, you may end up cutting off branches that still had some life left in them.
If you have any questions or comments, please send them to me at vanessa@gardenmuse.ca.
Originally published in the Creston Valley Advance on October 28, 2010.
