How should you prepare your garden for the winter?

Whether you have a fair amount of garden space alongside your house, or you turned your backyard into a blooming destination or you find peace of mind with your plants on the rooftop; no matter where they are in your house, a garden offers peace, solitude, colours and me-time. But they need to be taken care of, in ways which depend on the changing seasons. With winter on the doorstep, have you prepped your house garden yet?

Here’s how you can prepare your home garden for the upcoming winter season

From cleaning old weeds to planting new seeds, here’s a checklist that you can keep handy.

Clean up

The first thing that you need to do is enter your garden and look around for anything dead and dirty. Remove the fallen and dried twigs or leaves with hands or cut them, with scissors if required. Remove all deceased plants and set aside the sick ones. This way you would remove and reduce pests, fungus, bacteria and more.  

Trim

Just like you go for seasonal or annual trims for your hair, similarly, give a trim to all the bushes and shrubs. They should ideally be around 3-5 inches above ground, not more. However, keep a lookout that in this process you do not remove about-to-flower bulbs.

Plant winter-spring blooms

Take note of all the flowering plants which bloom well in the season and temperature. Not every region can bloom the same flowers and plants. Moreover, the soil also needs to be checked for its ability to grow the flowers you are thinking of. You can sow in tulips, daffodils, sunflower, rose, and intersperse them with garlic bulbs. Cover crops like rye, clove, peas etc. also does the garden a lot of good.

Separate Indoor plants

Check which healthy plants cannot survive the winter weather and bring them under the shade or inside your homes, if only it is safe to do so. You can line up potted plants near the entrance or in your indoor balcony, or keep the bigger plants as a décor in your house to complement your room décor. Any herbs growing in your garden can be moved around your kitchen or the balcony for easy access while cooking. Moreover, before bringing plants indoors, make sure all pests and harmful micro-organisms are removed, lest they cause trouble inside the house.  For their basic essentials try keeping them near windows so that they get enough light and water them when the soil dries off.

Maintain your garden tools

Keep a check on all your garden tools and accessories. All hose pipes and irrigation lines for larger gardens should be well drained. This ensures clean water supply when you start using them from the next time. After cleaning the pipes, coil and store them neatly. Draining out the water is important so that it doesn’t freeze inside the pipes blocking it all the way. For all other tools, clean them well, sharpen where needed and oil the handles for smoother functioning.

Make way for nature

Clean and refill bird feeding trays and ponds if you have any. Keep clean water ideally every day, or else once in every two-three days so that birds and other smaller animals can make a stop at your garden to quench their thirst and satisfy their hunger.

Protect the trees

For delicate plants and trees, you can either wrap them up with burlap or tree wrap. Place mulch around the base of the trees but make sure that they don’t touch the trunk of the tree. You can also put on a tree guard for squirrels, rodents, rats and other pests.

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