5 Easy Steps To Get Your Garden Ready For Winter

Most times, gardeners give their gardens a final mow between October and November and then leave the garden to fend for itself during winter. However, this is not good enough, as spending more time preparing the outside space before the frost starts will help your garden look better when spring comes.

You can continue to enjoy a lush garden all year long if you make an effort to prepare your garden for winter. Here are five steps to help you do just that.

1. Attend To Shrubs and Trees

Trim all wayward branches on your shrubs to enhance their shape, and trim your hedges before the frost comes. Also, remove all dead or damaged branches, especially on your trees, to avoid the stems from creating wounds and deformities.

To add beauty to your garden during the winter, look for trees or shrubs with brightly coloured bark. They are ideal for smaller gardens and are best during the winter. You can plant the Burgundy Tibetan cherry, the chalk-white paper birch, or the cinnamon paperbark maple. Getting shrubby dogwoods is perfect, too, as they come in yellow, scarlet, and flame-orange.

2. Tidy Garden Paths

Once the trees are bare, clear up all the accumulated leaves and debris, as it'll be much easier since everything is crisp and dry. You can also make a cobblestone path with concrete from The Concrete Network, as having a path made of concrete is beneficial and will prevent you from slipping when the frost comes.

3. Protect Plants

Change the position of pots that contain tender species like Cannas, Agapanthus, or Palms. You can move them into a conservatory or greenhouse if you have one to protect them from the winter.

You can also cover horticultural fleece around the trunks of your palm trees and spread large quantities of bark around the tree base and that of other delicate trees, like Japanese maples, to save them from the frost. Small deciduous trees and shrubs can be lifted and replanted in March. 

All other plants, especially conifers and evergreens, need rootballing.

4. Get involved In Winter Greenery And Colour

Because winter is a period of dormancy for most living things doesn't mean that your garden can't be colourful and exciting. Add architectural evergreen shrubs with deciduous shrubs to light up your winter border.

You can decide to plant the Phormium Tenax alongside the Cornus Sanguinea to beautify your garden with bright flame-coloured stems. Also, you can get concrete from the concrete network and make beautiful concrete planters for your winter pansies, violas, and polyanthus to have a creative display.

5. Turn Off the Watering System

If your watering system isn't turned off, you might want to do that right now. You wouldn't want your hose still connected when it starts to frost, as you will end up damaging them. In a warmer climate, it is easy to simply disconnect the system from a hose spigot and allow the water to drain. However, in colder climates, you will have to blast all the water with an air compressor or just bring everything inside.

Conclusion

There are several things to do when preparing for your winter gardening season. When these steps are taken early, they'll help your spring and summer run perfectly. These preparations will help your garden look beautiful during and after the winter and improve your yield over time.