The changing seasons: Tips to get your garden ready for winter
With the Autumn time firmly setting in, you can carry out plenty of tasks around your garden to ensure it is looking its best during the colder months and ready to come back to life in the springtime.
Here are some great ways you can care for your garden and help it transition into the colder months with ease.
1. Seasonal Pruning
Autumn provides the perfect opportunity to carry out pruning in your garden.
Pruning hedges and trees stimulate the growth of buds and flowers. Prune fruit trees and pinch out the tips of evergreens to stimulate new growth.
Remove any weeds, dead leaves or plants and give any hedges their final trim before the wintertime.
2. Scarify your lawn & collect leaves
If your lawn is a little on the patchy side or you’re looking at brown patches where the grass has died, it’s time to scarify. This helps remove dead grass, weed and moss and also aerate your lawn. Make sure you fill in any holes with new soil and sharp sand.
Aeration helps the roots grow deeply, promoting healthier growth and a more beautiful lawn in the springtime.
It’s important to collect the fallen leaves to make leafmould, which is great for potting compost and mulch. You can use it to fertilize the soil or around plants that need a little extra TLC. It’s a great way to use up the fallen leaves and keep them out of the way for next springtime.
If the weather remains dry, mowing over fallen leaves helps them to decompose even faster and will leave you with a fantastic leaf mould which you can use next year.
3. Start planting for next summer
Autumn time is a great time to think about planting for springtime. Cyclamen are a great choice and they will do well in pots. They can also be planted in an outdoor space – preferably in the shade of other plants, they are incredibly hardy to winter shade & summer drought but may need a little watering to allow them to establish themselves.
Biennials are great choices too, because they flower in the second year so it is perfect if you are looking for flowers that last longer than just one season. Delphiniums and forget-me-nots grow well in this type of climate and do not need to be replanted each year like annuals.
4. Think about the structure of your garden
If you are thinking of reorganisation of your garden then Autumn is the perfect time to move plants, trees and shrubs. Soak the ground in the days before you lift the rootball.
Loosen the soil around the roots of trees and shrubs, then lift them gently out of their hole with a fork – keep as much soil around the rootball as possible and once in their new home ensure you water them well.
5. Keep flowering
Many plants will continue to flower in Autumn, so cut back faded flowers and deadhead to the leaves. If you have evergreen shrubs, now is the time to clean up any leaves that have fallen, trimming them back if necessary.
Cut back perennials or early flowering bulbs by half their height, making sure not to prune too far down into the crowns of these plants, or you could kill them off completely.
We hope this has given you some advice to keep your garden looking great in the Autumn. Remember, if you want a beautiful garden come springtime, it’s all about planning ahead now!
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