Prepare Your Garden for Winter Successfully

As the days grow shorter and the temperature drops, it’s time to prepare your garden for the winter months.

While winter may seem like a dormant period for your garden, there are many essential tasks to ensure its remains low maintenance throughout the winter and come spring, it is a beacon of health and vitality.

Protecting Your Plants

You’ve spent a lot of time (and money) looking at your plants throughout the year, a few simple tips will ensure they get through the winter months unscathed.

• Tender Plants: For delicate plants like tropicals and annuals, we’d highly recommend moving them indoors to a cool, bright location. If this isn’t possible, cover them with frost-resistant horticultural fleece or bubble wrap (which you can purchase from any garden centre).
• Hardy Plants: While hardy plants can withstand colder temperatures, they still benefit from protection. Mulch around the base of trees and shrubs to insulate their roots and prevent frost damage.
• Pruning: Avoid heavy pruning in late autumn or winter. The one exception is when it comes to diseased, damaged, or overgrown branches.

Garden Tool Care

How many times do you look out across the snow covered or frost-ridden garden and see your spade leaning against the fence. Or a pile of tools on the side.

Looking after your garden tools is something many people overlook and simply assume these hardy tools will last forever. Well they won’t if you don’t look after them!

• Clean: Remove dirt and debris from tools using a wire brush or scraper. My spade above is in desperate need of some TLC!
• Sharpen: Sharpen blades of tools like secateurs and shears for efficient cutting.
• Oil: Apply a light coat of oil to metal parts to prevent rust.
• Store: Store tools in a dry, sheltered place, preferably indoors.

Garden Surfaces

Not just important, but also a safety consideration. These suggestions are quick and easy.

• Paths and Patios: Clear leaves and debris from paths and patios to prevent slipping hazards. Leaving rotting leaves may also discolour the surface.
• Lawn: Mow the lawn one last time before the first frost. Just make sure you don’t cut it too short though. throughout the winter months, the grass should be slightly longer than usual to protect the roots.
• Water Features: Clean and drain water features to prevent freezing and damage.

Wildlife and Your Garden

Lastly, once you’ve worked through the lists of jobs above, make your garden a haven for wildlife.

Warm coffee in hand, I love sitting down overlooking the garden, and watching all different species of birds flutter from one bird-feeder to another.

• Bird Feeders: Keep bird feeders filled with high-energy food to help birds survive the winter. I’d also recommend cleaning your bird feeder once a month just to avoid a build up of bad bacteria.
• Hedgehogs: Leave piles of leaves and brushwood in a quiet corner of your garden to provide shelter for hedgehogs.

By following these simple tips, you can ensure your garden remains in good shape throughout the winter months. As spring approaches, your garden will be ready to burst into life.