How to Prepare Flowers for Winter
Winter is fast approaching, and many keen gardeners are wondering how to maintain their plants and flowerbeds throughout these frosty temperatures. Residents up and down Kent are left mourning their plants after the cruel hit of winter on a yearly basis. Fortunately, Artificial Lawn Company is on hand to offer the best winter gardening tips whilst also highlighting what plants flower in winter.
During this time when flowerbeds require endless maintenance, the last thing you want to be doing is worrying about your lawn. Instead, consider Artificial Lawn Company’s synthetic grass solutions for residential gardens. This will allow you to channel all your energy into your flowerbeds, giving the greatest chance of survival during the winter months.
What Flowers Grow in the Winter?
Firstly, you will need to select flowers that are suitable for the time of year, as not all plants will bloom in colder temperatures. For example, many people ask, “do wallflowers flower in winter?” They do most of their growing between May and November and don’t do much during winter. Therefore, wallflowers are not the best thing to work on during the winter months.
Instead, you should plant flowers such as winter honeysuckles, Christmas roses, winter aconites, daphnes, snowdrops, mahonias, winter clematises, winter heathers, cyclamens, and pansies. Though pansies are ideal for winter planting, you may be wondering are all pansies winter flowering? Pansies aren’t solely winter flowering, in fact, they also bloom in early spring
Steps to Prepare your Flowers for Winter
Once you’ve decided on your winter flowers, you need to prepare to plant them.
1. Clean up dead plants – first thing’s first, you’ll need to pick up and dispose of any dead plants. This is because they can harbour funguses, pests, and diseases which are detrimental to the growth of your other plants.
2. Remove weeds – weeds take hold during growing season, so they should be promptly removed to ensure they don’t hog the nutrients that your plants need. You’ll need to dig these up and either throw them away or suffocate them under tarps. You should avoid placing them in compost as this will cause the same weeds to sprout wherever you place this compost. Wholly disposing of these weeds is the only way to inhibit them from re-growing.
3. Amend your soil – as winter approaches, it’s a good idea to add organic fertilisers, compost, and manure to your soil. This is important in making your soil biologically active, as well as enriching it and breaking it down. After this, you can then sow a cover crop or mulch your soil so that rain doesn’t wash away your amendments. This is particularly applicable to raised beds as they are more prone to draining than ground beds.
4. Plant cover crops – cover crops such as clover, vetch, or rye increase the levels of organic matter within your flowerbeds. This process breaks up compacted areas and prevents soil from eroding. Generally, you should plant cover crops roughly one month ahead of the first frost.
5. Carefully trim perennials – many plants benefit from being trimmed as it contributes to the plant’s nourishment. Furthermore, it protects them from exposure to stress and disease. However, you shouldn’t cut flowering perennial plants as these are suitable meals for birds.
6. Plant and divide bulbs – bulbs will bloom rather sporadically, so it’s a good idea to divide them out once they’ve undergone ample growth. Additionally, more bulbs should be planted during winter if you feel that your flowerbeds are looking rather bare.
7. Harvest and regenerate compost – compost is a great way to jumpstart growth, nourish soil, fertilise lawns, amend soils, and top up flowerbeds. Once you distribute the existing compost across your garden, you’ll have the space to generate more. It will be easy to gather more compost during winter due to having an influx of leaves and other debris at your disposal.
8. Replenish mulch – mulching restricts weed growth, prevents soil from eroding, and minimises water loss. In addition, a layer of mulch helps regulate soil moisture and temperature and acts as a shield against frost. This means your crops will live a longer and healthier life.
9. Review plants and assess growing season – a lot of gardening is about trial and error, meaning some plants will perform better in different areas and climates. If plants seem to be performing well in certain areas, you may consider adding varieties of that particular crop into that same space. However, if the growth isn’t great for a particular plant, you may move it to another area or decide that it’s not suited for winter growing at all.
10. Clean and sharpen tools – undeniably, winter is a more challenging time when it comes to gardening. As a result, you will want your tools to be in good stead to deal with all manner of gardening mishaps. Ahead of winter, you should ensure that your tools have been washed and sharpened so that they’re prepared for what lies ahead.
Get in Touch with Artificial Lawn Company
Here at ALC, we understand how taxing it can be to care for both a natural lawn and flowers during the winter months. Therefore, we want to make your life a little easier with the proposal of artificial lawn. If synthetic grass sounds like a viable solution for your garden, please contact us and a member of our specialist team will be on hand to support you.