Maintaining Your Garden In Winter

Many homeowners tend to neglect their gardens in autumn and winter, which is a pity as that is really the time when you can do the landscaping and reorganising that you don’t have time for in spring and summer.

Estate agents agree that an immaculate garden can increase the value of a property by as much as 20%. Buyers are also attracted by well-kept outdoor areas, so maintaining your garden year-round makes good sense – especially if you are thinking of selling.

Whatever the season, there is always work to be done in a garden, and most people are too busy to do it themselves so their gardens never look their best. With regular maintenance throughout the year, you can have an exceptional garden, so don’t put your professional garden services on hold just because the lawn doesn’t grow as fast as it does in summer.

Garden maintenance entails more than just mowing the lawn, and most gardens could do with a general clean-up after summer. Gardeners and garden services are only too happy to spend winters trimming shrubs, trees and shaping hedges. Other tasks could include digging over flower beds in preparation for spring planting, removing weeds from paving, raking up leaves, weeding and general planting as well as digging up and replanting an entire lawn.

Landscaping aspects of the job could include laying of new lawns, building flowerbeds, and choosing suitable plants and features. This might also be the time to put up a pergola, lay down paving or make a new water feature.

Autumn and winter gardening tasks could include:

• Pruning of roses should be carried out from mid-July to August.

• The colder months are also the time to prune shrubs like honeysuckle, butterfly bushes, hibiscus, lavenders, verbenas, tibouchinas and viburnums as well as vines, trees, and fruit trees.