Ecnerwal wrote:
....
Normally they laugh off the winters, frequently having green foliage
throughout, so this was a surprising departure from the norm. They are
in horse manure (to be picky, composted HM - essentially anything
resembling dirt in my garden is composted HM from 1-20 years old with a
bit of other compost making up an insignificant proportion, and "soil"
being essentially non-existent) - on top of clay - dig a few feet down
and you can make pots out of it. Mulched with lots of pine needles. I
think I have 4 out of 9 in one patch, of which one is somewhat normal
and the rest have obviously suffered, and 1 out of 15 in the other.

we've got mostly clay soil here too and
this past winter was ok, didn't notice any
major loss of plants. a thick mulch could
be a potential problem with all the snow
cover we had. i do mulch some plants, but
none of them heavily, just a light mulch
layer so that the soil is covered to help
keep down frost heaving.


songbird