CHAPTER VII 
WINTER-KILLING AND How To Prevent It 
Dry and wet locations — Mulching for shallow-rooted vines — Vines 
in the rockery — Weak rooting causes winter-killing — Heavy vs, 
light soil — Plants that kill from the top — Trouble with animals. 
WHEN a vine winter-kills, there is something 
wrong. Either the plant is not hardy enough to 
stand our winters, or the local conditions are not 
favourable. Bad location is one of the worst 
enemies of vines and often leads to winter-killing, 
but there are sometimes causes that are beyond 
our control. Winter-killing is noticed chiefly 
whenever the plants are in an exceptionally 
dry or anexceptionally wet location. To prevent 
this, then, we must mulch very heavily in dry 
locations, and drain, in some way, places where 
the water lodges in winter and spring. 
We often find the winter-killing more severe 
among plants that are not deep rooters, and fur- 
ther, it will sometimes be noticed that these kill 
back a great deal in comparatively mild winters. 
This can be explained only in one way: The 
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