Winter is upon us, and if you haven’t experience much rain yet, I’m sure the colder evenings and autumn hues have confirmed that the cold season has arrived.
Just as we take extra precautions to keep warm and vitamin-up over the next few months, similar precautions must be taken to care for our beloved gardens.
Here are few winter gardening tips that will ensure that your flowerbeds and plants are still alive come spring:
- Mulch flower beds with compost
Mulching with compost
- Clear paths of moss and lichen
- Invest in a good weed clearing product to ward off stray shoots in your paving
- Remove weeds, dead or diseased plants and wood from the garden
- Pot tender plants and move them inside or to a greenhouse, if you live in a rainy or frost-prone area
- Insulate pot plants and containers with bubble wrap, if you live in a cold or frost-prone area
Bubble wrapping a pot plant.
- Remove faded flowers regularly and water your flowerbeds every morning, if frost accumulated overnight
Frostbitten flower.
- Water indoor or outdoor pot plants every three days, or when the soil feels dry
- Feed the soil with liquid fertiliser every two weeks
- Ward off snails and other garden pests with organic snail bait, or cover the soil with crushed egg shells, sawdust and coffee beans. Beer traps are also very effective in eliminating pesky garden critters.
Egg shells around a new sapling to ward off slugs and snails.
If you have garden furniture or an outside deck, sand it down and seal it with a preservative to ensure that wood rot /wood-decay fungus does not set in.
