Winter isn’t the favourite time of year for most gardeners, but with just a little prep work you can have your plot looking spick and span and ready to face whatever the weather can throw at it. We’ve put together the 10 essential tasks and garden supplies that will ensure you can make the most of the garden through the chilliest months.
1. Wrap up warm
Just like many of us some of the more tender plants prefer to spend their winters snuggled under a decent duvet. Exotics like Palms, Tree Ferns, Bananas, Cordylines and Yuccas will definitely need some extra help in all but the mildest regions. Plant protection options include hessian sacking and breathable horticultural fleece, both of which can be wrapped and then tied around larger plants, or, simplest of all, jute bags that can easily be slipped over your tender babies when frosts threaten.
2. Move tender plants to their winter quarters
Plants that are small enough – or mobile enough – need to be shifted away from exposed spots and frost pockets. Potted plants are best moved against a fence or house wall, or into the shelter of a greenhouse and again, jute bags and horticultural fleece are both ideal for quick additional protection. Tender tubers like Dahlias need to be lifted and stored in hessian sacks in a cool, dark place.
3. Cut back herbaceous perennials
Whip out summer annuals that won’t make it through the cold months and cut back untidy herbaceous plants. Don’t be too brutal though – old stems provide vital winter homes for essential garden beasties like Ladybirds and Lacewings. Leave any seed heads that take your fancy for winter interest – a frosted Sedum seed-head, for example, is a thing of great beauty – and the birds will thank you too.


4. Remove damaged/dead branches from trees and shrubs
Winter’s not the time for major pruning, but with the leaves gone dead branches are easier both to spot and to take out. Autumn storms often leave a few hanging and tattered limbs too, so get them down before they tear off into the trunk. All but the chunkiest can go onto the compost heap, but be careful not to compost anything that has fungal disease like coral spot or leaf spot.
5. Trim evergreen hedges
So long as temperatures remain the right side of freezing then winter is the ideal time to give the likes of privet, conifer and holly hedges a short back and sides. Holly and Ivy make handy and long lasting seasonal decorations, all the softer stuff can be composted and woody material shredded.
6. Leaf Tidy
Make sure to collect up the last of the fallen leaves from lawns, paths & ponds – ideal for composting or mulching, but watch out for slugs that also like to get cosy in winter leaf piles.
7. Weeding
As the perennials fade and trees and shrubs drop their leaves have a look out for weeds that went un-noticed earlier in the year, they’ll suddenly be revealed lurking in beds and borders. Again, everything can go straight onto the compost aside from thick rooted perennial weeds, which are best shredded or left to dry out and then composted.



8. Divide Snowdrops
Snowdrops (closely followed by primroses) are the earliest wild flowers to appear, and there’s no better sight for driving away those winter-garden-blues. The old advice about planting snowdrops when they’re in the green still holds good, but equally now is the time to split up big clumps of bulbs that are getting overcrowded. Move them when they’re just coming into bud, so long as the ground is unfrozen, replant with some fresh garden compost and they’ll soon romp away.
9. Mulch, Mulch, Mulch
After all the beds, trees and shrubs are in shape then apply a thick mulch to the soil. Leaves or your own garden compost both makes ideal mulches, and don’t be stingy, we’re talking 3 to 4 inches minimum depth here. Particularly important around newly planted trees and shrubs mulching provides plant protection in the coldest weather and, once those worms get to work, will also add useful bulk to your soil.
10. Put tools to bed
Finally, once all those other winter jobs are sorted, it’s well worth giving garden tools & mower a quick once over to keep them clean and dry as well as making sure they’re where you need them to be come spring time. Greenhouse windows should be cleaned off too, especially if you are over-wintering plants in there – they’ll will need as much light as they can get.