How to care for Gunnera (Winter protection)

Hello there, welcome back. In this video we're going to be putting our Gunnera to bed for the winter now if you're not familiar with what Gunnera is, just check out some of my previous pond videos most notably like summer updates this thing here produces massive leaves and it can get to eight ten feet tall, it's a gigantic plant it's also known as giant rhubarb, that's the leaves there, I mean that's quite a small one Some of them you can literally shelter two or three people underneath. So in this video we're going to be making sure that this is nice and warm for the winter because originally this plant does come from South America. It's a Brazilian plant and it would grow in really rich boggy soils Our winters in the UK can be quite harsh and if this isn't properly looked after, it can be killed off Okay the first thing we're going to do is take down some of these leaves. These stalks are quite stiff still. So we're going to leave them about a foot to 18 inches high and just cut that off and we're going to put all the leaves to one side. That's the actual flower of the plant that can come off as well, and that can just be laying over the top of the plant. Those ones have been in the water so they're not going to be good for the second stage. They are going to be good just to pile straight on top. We need to add a few extra nutrients and an insulating layer. Now you can just use straw or something, if you get a square bale of straw just use that, scatter that on top of the Gunnera but I'm going to use leaves because I've got millions of them around here and they need cleaning up anyway, now in here we've got a mixture of pine needles leaves snapped up twigs, pine cones, all sorts, basically this is just going to give us a lovely rich mulch for the Gunnera and also to keep it warm as well it acts like an insulating jacket, okay so we've got our leaves or straw And we're basically going to cover the whole plant with those. We're going to push a few of our stalks through that. Now on some plants, you might have the stalks already attached to the plant that are pointing straight up. Just leave those long and you'll be able to put your leaves straight on top. In this case, they were kind of growing out the side, so I'm just kind of poking a few through the pile. Then we're going to take the leaves that we chopped off in the first place, spear them down Quite often you'll find you'll just drop one onto one of these spears, and you can thread another one over the stalk from that one There you go. I'll give you a close-up to let you see what it looks like. But that's the work basically done So that's it, tucked up for the winter. This keeps the worst of the weather off it and if we have a look under here that's where we've got all the leaves and all the rotten vegetation. So that nourishes the plant, keeps it warm and it ensures that it's going to come back very strong next year. Now there's no absolutely right time to do this. I would say maybe it's after the first two or three frosts. Frosts normally start quite light you know minus one minus two that'll see the leaves really flop down and as soon as you see them flopping that's the time to put it to bed. If you do it too early there'll still be a lot of energy in those leaves and stalks and if you cut those off as the plant's trying to draw all that energy back down into the roots and into the plant you're going to inhibit its growth for next year so give it a couple of frosts and then do it. Now you might You might notice that everything else around the pond has already been cut back. The Gunnera would be the last thing you cut back, and the good thing about that is all those other things that you cut back down to practically nothing can be piled on top of the Gunnera, and then you can button it up for the winter. Look at that, that's all the bits of sedge grass and rushes and everything that have been cut down from around the pond. They make excellent fertilizer for this particular plant. On this particular one we've got ferns and all sorts growing up and around it. Just cut all them down, pile them on top, And put the leaves on top. This is my biggest one. So I'm going to do a time lapse of this one. And I think I'll get some of the stuff that we cut from around the pond and pile it on here. Show you what's really needed to get this lovely for the winter. Hope you've enjoyed this video about how to care for your gunnera leading up to winter. Best of luck with yours. I know some do die off in the winter, but if you look after them properly, they have a really good chance of coming away strong in the spring. Check out my other videos on my channel. There's loads of pond videos, there's loads of aquarium videos, oh man, there's outdoor videos, there's all sorts on there. Most of them have a slant towards something educational, so check them out, let us know what you think, subscribe if you want to subscribe, and I'll see you in the next video.