How to get your garden ready for spring

Autumn is the ideal time to give your garden a thorough tidy before winter arrives – whether that’s clearing fallen leaves or tidying borders. We caught up with our Head Gardener, Lee, for his tips on some of the simple things you can do to get your garden ready for the months ahead.

Border maintenance

A general clearance of your garden is essential to keeping your current plants in good condition over the colder months. Cut back faded flowers and any flowers that look untidy. This is the perfect time to lift and divide perennials and re-plant while your soil is still warm. This is a good way to propagate your plants and create more plants in your garden, proving a much more cost-effective way of populating your garden.

Rose pruning

By autumn, a lot of our plants have grown very tall so it’s important we cut them back to avoid damage, especially rose bushes. We recommend that stems are cut between a third and a half of your plant’s height to stop the plant swaying in the wind and becoming loose in the soil. Another thing to keep an eye out for is the three D’s – dead, damaged and diseased foliage. If any of your foliage shows any of these signs, this needs to be treated.

Collecting leaf debris and making leaf mould

There are many pros and cons to collecting up your fallen leaves in your garden. One benefit of leaf debris is the leaves make good ‘leaf mould’ when composted which provides beneficial nutrients for plants. However, if you want to keep the borders of your garden spick and span then collecting your leaves is vital to help reduce the risk of hibernating slugs and snails that may come over the winter.

There are plenty more things you can do around your garden to prep ahead for the spring months, these include…

• Planting drifts of spring bulbs informally in your lawn such as crocuses, daffodils and snakes-head fritillaries.
• Lift tender perennials and plants that have tubers to avoid frost damage by storing them in a cool dark place until spring.
• Collect seed from faded blooms and flowers so you can sow them ready for spring.
• Clean out your greenhouse of debris so it doesn’t harbour overwintering pest and disease.

If you enjoyed these gardening tips, you may also like to read how houseplants can help improve wellbeing, six bedroom plants to help you sleep better and our blog for National Gardening Week