By Esme Clark
Winter is a quiet time across the gardening world - it’s a time for planning and resting, getting ready for the year to come. A lot of gardening companies offer reduced hours throughout December and January.
The garden lifecycle follows the seasons and each month brings new tasks to manage. This includes caring for the flora, soil, water, and light.
The Ever Changing Garden
Spring is one of the most important times in your garden - if you’re not weeding, feeding, and pruning ready for a gorgeous summer then you won’t be able to experience your garden to its fullest in the coming year. All of nature is doing its best to thrive - but sometimes a little extra help is needed.
Throughout summer it is wise to have a visit at least once a week to make sure that the plants are being cultivated and not growing wild. Lawns also require extra care in the burning heat. There’s no end to the work you can do in a garden when the weather is at its warmest.
Autumn Garden Care
Over autumn, as summer planting becomes dormant, there are a plethora of gorgeous specimens just waiting to burst into colour. Your cornus (dogwoods) and hellebores are starting to glow whilst your roses and hedges can be pruned one last time.
Falling leaves are wonderful, but an experienced maintenance gardener knows that they are perfect hubs for slugs and snails - who will eventually wake up ready to chomp through your more tender perennials.
What Happens to the Garden Over Winter?
As the weather grows colder and the days shorter, a large selection of plants will drop leaves, stop flowering, and go dormant. However! this doesn’t mean winter isn’t an important time for your garden. During this period plants and trees are breaking down chemicals and preparing themselves for the coming seasons, damage or improper maintenance to a plant at this point could kill it.
How Much Time do I Need to Spend on the Garden Over Winter?
There are plenty of jobs to be done in the winter if you love being in your garden, but bring your flask because these jobs can be a little more arduous and very chilly.
- Feeding: minimal feeding is required in winter, but if your plants do need this then remember to keep them lower in nitrogen and higher in potassium.
- Weeding: most annual weeds will have died back in the cold, but turning your soil and rooting out the stubborn weeds is always a good idea.
- Pruning: there are plenty of winter flowering and hardier evergreens that can be formatively pruned at this time of year. This is also a good time to clear through your beds and get them as tidy as possible for spring.
- Bulbs: technically Autumn/Winter is the best time for bulbs but if you got carried away at the garden centre then there’s no harm adding some a little later in the year - trial and error will show what can survive a later planting.
- Tidying: as well as sorting through your planting, keeping leaves clear from your lawn & cleaning paths can ensure your garden stays free from pests and organised and ready for the new season.
The UK's unpredictable weather means most time-consuming gardening happens during the Spring and Summer. To keep the garden organised and ready for Spring, only a few hours are needed each month during Winter.
If you're discouraged by the cold weather tasks, a professional gardener is also an option for Winter care.
