Winter months aren’t the right time for planting, but they do provide plenty of time for soil preparation and garden maintenance.
Just like summer, winter has its unique gardening conditions. You will need to prepare for the cold-season threats to the health of your plants.
You can follow my three key tops to help maintain a healthy winter garden and ensure your spring growth thrives,
1 Manage Soil Temperature: During winter the ground freezes and hardens, so it’s really vital to keep your soil and plants protected. This allows your hardy perennials, shrubs and trees to survive the winter and helps prevent shock or stress by the fluctuations in temparature. Uneven ground temperatures is one of the major risks your plants face during winter. To help keep your soil temperatures even simply insulates the soil by spreading a thick layer of new mulch.
2 Prevent Soil Shifting: The continuous freezing and thawing can crack the frozen soil. A sufficient level of cracking can shift your bulbs and push them to the surface. You can prevent soil shifting by using evergreen boughs as a mulch layer across your bulb beds.
Protect Plants from Snow Piles: Although snow piles can be a great soil insulator by acting as mulch, they can also be dangerous to branches and limbs of sensitive trees and shrubs. The weight of the snow and the freezing temperatures can cause branches to snap. If you notice snow piling up, ensure that you regularly brush off the snow off your plants with a broom or other soft tool. You can start with the bottom brances and work your way up so that lower branches don’t accumulate further snow weight.
Whilst Winter is a dormancy period for plants, but they still require regular attention. Make sure that you conduct regular winter garden inspections. It;s really important to look for signs of diseased limbs and foliage or pest infestations. Make sure that you address these issues right away help your plants survive the winter elements and keep them healthy for spring growth.