Preparing Your Winter Garden – 7 Useful Tips
When the days get shorter and the temperature outside drops, you have to start preparation work for your winter garden. It is important not to skimp on these tasks because you want to be ready for anything that the season can throw at you.
Here are some of the tips that can help you get your winter garden ready:
Rake up the fallen leaves
Raking leaves is an inevitable part of autumn and winter. If your garden has several trees, you want to be ready to meet the cascading waterfall of leaves that comes off them. And when you rake leaves, don’t just throw them away. The organic matter makes for a nice compost material, which you can later reuse in your winter garden.
Wrap pots to protect shrubs
If you have any shrubs in containers, you must know their roots are in danger during cold weather. You will do well to use bubble wrap to preserve them. If you don’t like the way it looks, go with the second layer of hessian sacking. Not only does it protect the roots, but also the pots, so your winter garden will be safe.
Allow the wildlife to thrive in a habitat with herbaceous perennials
If you are one to consider the needs of insects and other animals during the winter months, then doing nothing might just be the right thing to do. Instead of cutting the herbaceous perennials, you can leave some of them up, as a habitat for insects. One example is ladybugs. At the same time, you don’t want to leave a lot of the tall plants without attention, as that could be troublesome in the winter months.
Cover newly planted woodland plants
You will do well to consider a fleece/enviromesh. The idea is that it keeps the root zone dry, which can greatly influence tender plants. If the weather remains dry, lift the fleece to check on the roots. If the area is too dry, you may want to water it a little and then re-cover the plans again.
Rose pruning
It is a good idea to cut back the stems in November, but at least one-third, in order to prevent the wind rock. In January and February, you can winter prune your rose bushes. You want to cut it back to a half, in order to get an even, round shape. Be on the lookout for any damaged and dead stems, and remove them from the plant.
Lawn care
Before the winter months fully set in, you may want to consider some lawn care. First thing you want to do is to remove the thatch and moss with a scarifier. If you have a small lawn, you can do well with springbok. You will then aerate the lawn and add a sandy top dressing for improving the structure and soil drainage. The main goal here is to provide some of the much-needed nutrients for root development. Pick you autumn feed with care.
Look after your garden furniture
If you have garden furniture, it is a good idea to look after it by applying wood preservative. When you clean the items, look for any damage and repair them, if need be. Then, it is time to store them in a dry place for the winter months, if you wish to preserve them. They will be ready for deploying outside when the weather warms up.
All of these are steps you need to go through when preparing your winter garden for the cold months. Once you do that, you can rest easy knowing that it will be in top shape.