A garden for all seasons

It’s difficult to say which is the shortest season, but autumn certainly seems to have flown by. The official definition of winter is when the temperature falls below 6 degrees Celsius, so parts of Scotland and northern England which are far from the coast actually have a winter which lasts for over a third of the year.  In central England it lasts for around three and a half months, the West Country and along the south coast have 2 ½ months of winter and at the tip of Cornwall it’s just one month long.

Now winter is upon us it’s easy to forget about the garden and let other things consume us.  However as one wise old owl once said, the gardening season begins on 1st January and ends on 31st December and gardens are never dormant for long.  To ensure you have the best start in spring, don’t let the winter pass you by without doing some essential maintenance in the right areas.

Key jobs for winter

Now that the routine chores are finished for the year, this is your big change to get on with any garden planning or redesigning, and to do any building jobs, but don’t undertake concreting if it’s likely to freeze. Other jobs for the winter months include:

· Continue cutting the grass with gardening equipment if it is still growing in spells of mild weather – but don’t cut it too short.

· Digging with garden tools continues when conditions are suitable, to introduce manure and prepare the ground for spring planting.

· Prune fruit trees, figs and grapevines with garden accessories when they are fully dormant.

· Protect containers planted with winter bedding, or all-year-round shrubs from freezing sold. Even totally hardy plants suffer when all the water in the potting compost freezes.

· Sprinkle sand or grit on icy paths, but not salt which harms nearby plants.

· Take the opportunity to treat timber with wood preservative.

· Erect trellis, posts or arches.

· Order seeds from seed catalogues ready for spring.

· Float a child’s ball on a pond so that hot water can be poured over it in icy weather and a hole created for fish to breathe.