As the colder months settle in, early winter presents unique challenges and opportunities for gardeners. From protecting tender plants outdoors to ensuring proper care for indoor ornamentals, there's plenty to keep gardeners busy. Whether you're focused on the health of your lawn, preparing vegetables for storage, or maintaining your glasshouse, thoughtful attention now can set the stage for a successful spring. This guide outlines key tasks to tackle during early winter, helping you safeguard your plants, improve your gardens resilience, and enjoy the fruits of your labor in the seasons to come.
Ornamentals Outdoors
- Protect any tender plants from overnight frosts, and less hardy wall shrubs or climbers can be covered with a layer of fleece (try to allow an air space between the plants and the fleece).
- Cover tender rock garden plants with sheets of glass or perspex to protect them from damage due to excessive wet. Those plants with a hairy leaf surface are most in need of protection.
- Prepare window-boxes with fresh compost before planting wallflowers or winter-flowering pansies.
- Shoots of Jasminum nudiflorum and Mahonia can be brought indoors as soon as they appear and placed in jars of water to help the buds open before Christmas.
- Inspect stored bulbs, corms, and tubers, discard any showing signs of rot to prevent infections spreading.
- Check container plants for signs of waterlogging and, if it does occur, tip the pot on its side for a few hours to allow it to drain.
- In periods of cold weather, insulate outdoor pots by wrapping bubble wrap around the pots and tying it in place. Do not cover the surface or base. Group pots together for extra protection.
Lawns and Meadows
- In drier conditions, spike and rake the lawn to improve aeration.
- Lawn repairs can be carried out in dry weather, including damaged edges and correcting humps and hollows.
- Avoid walking on the grass when there is a frost.
Vegetables
- If the weather is dry enough and soil conditions permit, prepare celery trenches for next spring.
- If frost or snow threatens, lift enough parsnips and carrots to keep them available for use. Lay out in trays covered with damp newspaper and store in a cool, dry, frost-free place ready for use during a spell of bad weather.
- Continue with winter digging whenever the soil conditions are not too wet and/or frost free. For no-dig gardening, continue to empty compost bins and use the organic material to mulch new or existing beds.
Fruit
- Inspect stored fruit on a weekly basis. Use any that appear to be softening and discard any that are showing signs of rot.
- Renew grease bands that have many trapped insects on them.
- After the leaves have fallen, start winter-pruning top fruit (NOT plums or cherries). Apply wound paint immediately to large cuts.
- Protect undeveloped fruits on fig trees by draping fleece over the branches.
- Spray top fruit and cane fruits with a winter wash to kill woolly aphids, insect eggs, and hibernating grubs, as well as dealing with some fungal infections. Follow the manufacturer's instructions on the container.
Glasshouse (including Conservatories and Polythene Structures)
- For an early crop of broad beans, sow long-pod varieties in boxes of loam-based seed compost. Keep the boxes in the glasshouse or a frame until early spring.
- When frosty periods occur, cold frames can be protected overnight with several layers of fleece or bubble wrap polythene (in really cold periods, use both together).
- Prune down the stems of the Chrysanthemums when they have finished flowering, but continue to keep them moist. Spray them occasionally to encourage the stools (bases) to produce new growth from the base. This will provide material for cuttings for next year. Insert the cuttings into cell trays as they become available. Place in a propagator or closed case to keep the atmosphere moist until roots have been formed.
- Prune grape vines growing indoors as soon as they have dropped all their leaves. Cut back every side shoot to within one dormant bud of the main stem or branches.
- Christmas-flowering plants in the greenhouse should be treated as tender plants and cannot be hardened off in the usual way. When moving them from one site to another, place them in high-sided cardboard boxes and cover them to protect them from cold air.
- On milder days, try to ventilate the greenhouse, polytunnel, or cold frame to allow air circulation and help reduce the chance of fungal attack. Make sure you remove any leaves, stems, flowers, or plants that have been affected by fungus.
Ornamentals Indoors
- Water indoor plants sparingly, applying it before midday to allow plants time to dry before nightfall.
- Remove plants from window sills and place them into the center of the room overnight when frost is forecast. It is often colder at night in the space between the window and the curtains than inside the room.
Propagation
- Continue taking hardwood cuttings and inserting them into open ground when soil conditions are suitable. These cuttings can be inserted through a place of plastic or ground cover membrane to help reduce weed issues and preserve moisture through spring and summer.
Maintenance
- The building and repair of paths, steps, and walls can be carried out now, but take care laying concrete or using mortar during periods of frost-frost weather. Have some hessian sacking ready to provide overnight protection.
- Treat sheds and fences with a wood preservative when the weather is dry.
This story was published on: 20/01/2025
Image attribution: Pexels / Mareefe
Links to external, or third party websites, are provided solely for visitors' convenience. Links taken to other sites are done so at your own risk and Garden Help accepts no liability for any linked sites or their content. When you access an external website, keep in mind that Garden Help has no control over its content. Any link from us to an external website does not imply or mean that Garden Help endorses or accepts any responsibility for the content or the use of such website. Garden Help does not give any representation regarding the quality, safety, suitability, or reliability of any external websites or any of the content or materials contained in them. It is important for users to take necessary precautions, especially to ensure appropriate safety from viruses, worms, Trojan horses and other potentially destructive items. When visiting external websites, users should review those websites' privacy policies and other terms of use to learn more about, what, why and how they collect and use any personally identifiable information. Hyperlinks and hypertext links are provided on our website to promote easy access to the variety of information and services provided. We accept no liability arising out of the use of such links, including: misuse or misunderstanding of these hyperlinks and hypertext links and web site navigational methods third party interpretation of data or information which is distributed around the web site and reached using hypertext and hyperlinks third party understanding of or use of the navigational structure of the site or the interpretation of distributed information on the site We may revise
this disclaimer at any time, without prior notice, by updating this web page.
We work hard to make sure that every image is used properly and according to the creator's wishes. If you feel that there is a attribution or copyright issue, please
Click Here
IMMEDIATELY