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Gifts for the Winter Garden

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Give Your Garden a Winter Gift

Yes you read that right, it's not gifts for the gardener- though I'm sure they'd be delighted to receive them too, but gifts for the garden. Think of all the pleasure your garden gives you throughout the year. Wouldn't you like to repay the garden for all it's efforts during the toughest time of the gardening year?

Whether it's adding a few late winter flowering plants or giving your beds a well deserved mulching with some manure or bark chippings your garden will appreciate the gift or care and attention from you during the winter, better still it will pay you back ten fold come spring. Think of it as a way of paying it forward in the garden.

I've picked out some of the best things you can do for your garden in winter to keep it looking it's very best.

Give your garden a good feed this winter

One of the best gifts you can give your garden is a good mulch with manure and bark chips. This not only feeds the soil and helps the garden to retain moisture. It also helps protect the roots of your perennial plants from frost damage, keeps the soil tempreature higher and suppresses weeds. Give your garden a good mulch this winter and it will repay you ten fold with better soil, that warms up faster in spring and less time spent weeding.

Give your garden some winter flowers

We tend to think of the winter as a bleak time and we'd be right but there are plants which will flower even in the worst weather. Stop your garden looking drab this winter and add some winter flowering plants. Primroses, pansies, hellebores and winter flowering heathers all stand up well to the cold and put on a show of colour from late winter through to spring.

Give the Garden a Carpet of Snowdrops

There are few sights as beautiful as a carpet of snowdrops blanketing a garden. Despite their delicate appearance these are tough little plants that are in bloom as early as January in some parts of the world. Even the sight of those first little green shoots poking up through the bare soil is uplifting, reminding one that spring really is on it's way and winter will end. There are countless varieties of snowdrop, many of which are highly sought after by collectors. Snowdrops are also the gifts that keeps on giving, left undisturbed they'll multiply and put on even more spectacular displays, year after year.

Give the Garden a Gift?

Picture is from the Cambo Estate, Scotland.

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Give the Garden Some Bright Colours

Introduce a blaze of colour to your garden in winter and early spring by planting as many crocuses and winter aconites as you can lay hands on. Whilst most crocuses tending to be spring flowering there are some excellent autumn varieties on the market. Try planting a mix of autumn and spring flowering crocus to prolong the display. Both crocuses and winter aconites will spread if left undisturbed bring beauty and colour to the garden for many years to come.

Give the Garden Mahonia

Mahonia is a beautiful sturdy evergreen shrub. It not only adds colour and interest to the winter garden but it's flowers are an excellent early source of nectar for queen bees emerging from their winter hibernation in early spring.

Give Your Garden a Smarter Gardener

There's always something new to learn with gardening and the winter months are the ideal time to plan what you want to do in the garden next year. Whether it's attracting more wildlife, going guerrilla or growing your own food and herbs there are lots of good quality, informative and often beautifully illustrated gardening books to help you out. I've listed a few of my favourites below.