Why bother with winter gardening?
Maintaining gardens from December-February is desirable and a lot of people appreciate the benefits this brings. Dan Frazer Gardening can offer fortnightly, monthly or one-off visits during this period. It can be a good time to get hidden areas of the garden completely gutted out, trim back hedges and shrubs, build garden structures and clear away debris. It’s also the time to prepare borders for the spring. Winter gardening is considered by us to be an essential part of the year.
There is no doubt that a garden that is maintained through the winter looks good 12 months of the year rather than just 9, and when spring growth kicks in the garden is already up and running and getting the lawns into shape comes much more quickly.
Typical winter gardening work includes:
- Hedge and shrub trimming; formative trimming of hedges and pruning shrubs such as hydrangea.
- Clearing dead perennial growth; clearing up dead stalks and leaves from borders.
- Tree care such as thinning, crown lifting, reduction.
- Preparation of flower beds for the spring; tasks including removing and composting or storing bedding roots, weeding, hoeing, raking out under plants, cutting clean edges and adding compost mulch to beds.
- Bulb planting; late autumn and early winter is the time to plant most bulbs but be sure to try and protect them from squirrels who love daffodil and tulip bulbs.
- Leaf clearance; using rakes and blowers we make sure that kerbsides, driveways, parking bays, shrub beds and all lawns are kept clear of leaves, which also prevents a layer of dead growth building up and causing moss and weed problems.
- Control of moss and algae growth on hard surfaces by chemical treatment or pressure washing.
- Litter picking.
- Re-cutting lawn edges.
- Tree and shrub planting.
- Dividing and moving perennials.
