The weather’s getting cooler, and there are lots of preparations to make. Digging out the extra quilts, making sure the heaters work – it’s easy to forget about getting your garden ready for the cold. Of course, if that sounds like you, it’s highly likely that you’ll find yourself fixing winter’s damage when spring comes calling. But you don’t want to waste your precious time playing catch-up, do you?

To ensure your garden stays healthy and productive before, during and after winter, simply follow our top tips.

Lawn care

In winter, grass tends to go dormant and develop a two-tone look. However, there are a few things you can do to help keep this from happening. Just making a few changes to your usual gardening routine will make all the difference:

·       Fertilise your lawn once every couple of weeks before winter to help keep it healthy during the cold months

·       Keep you grass a bit longer when cutting to protect your lawn from frost

·       Aerate your lawn using a pitchfork or aeration tool to loosen compacted soil during a rainy winter

Vegies

If you plan ahead, your garden can provide delicious vegetables throughout the winter. You just need to ensure the plants are well-protected, and get enough nutrients to grow. Start by adding compost to help enrich your soil. If you don’t already have a compost heap, there are probably loads of things in your garden that would be perfect for composting. This will have the extra benefit of helping you clear out old growth. In fact, most professional gardeners will agree that it’s well worth cleaning out some of your old plants to prevent disease and pesky insects. So make sure you:

·       Add a thick layer of mulch to protect winter vegies, such as carrots and garlic, from frost

·       Pull up summer vegies, such as tomatoes and peas, and use for compost

Flowering plants

Once temperatures start to fall, it’s time to start thinking about clipping back your perennial flowers and protecting your spring-flowering bulbs. When properly pruned, perennials, such as black-eyed Susan and ornamental grasses, can add interest to your garden. As for your bulbs, the soil can shift and crack during the winter and the rain can weigh them down. You can prepare your flowing plants by:

·       Pruning back perennials to about 10cm and adding mulch

·       Digging up bulbs and storing them in a dry environment, such as a container filled with sand or shavings to keep them ready for replanting in early spring

Tropical plants

When it comes to tropical plants, it’s easy to keep them protected and healthy during winter. They actually need less moisture to survive, so you can reduce watering for plants like ferns and bromeliads. You also need to move tropical and subtropical plants to a sheltered area in your garden or bring them indoors before winter strikes. If you decide to display your plants in your home, just remember to hose them down to remove dirt and insects.

If you need some extra green fingers to help get your garden ready for winter, check out our lawn cutting & maintenance listings today.