Plants 'toughen up ahead of winter' if one key gardening task is performed now
Gardeners are encouraged to perform one key job now to ensure their gardens stay healthy and resilient all through the winter.
Autumn gardening tips
As the chill of winter draws nearer, your garden may seem like it needs less attention – but that’s far from the case.
In fact, November is one of the busiest months in the gardening calendar, and there's one key task that can help your plants toughen up before the cold sets in.
According to gardening expert Jamie Shipley and Managing Director of Hedges Direct, now’s the time to give your hedges and shrubs a proper prune.
This vital maintenance job not only keeps your garden looking tidy but also prepares your plants to withstand the harsh winter months.
While general trimming should have been completed by late summer to allow new growth to mature before winter, now is the time to focus on renovation pruning.
This involves cutting back a hedge that has become too large, a job best done during the dormant period from November to March.
This reduces sap loss from pruning cuts and helps the plants recover more effectively - but before tackling this, do your research to ensure your hedging plants can tolerate hard pruning.
Species such as beech, hawthorn, hornbeam, yew, holly, and shrubby honeysuckle are well-suited to this treatment.
And many deciduous shrubs, including cotinus, forsythia, and syringa, can also benefit from a hard prune between November and March.
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According to the expert, now is also a good time to plant out tulips, explaining: “When it comes to bulbs there is one simple rule – to plant during dormancy.
“This will vary depending on the flowering time. For example, spring-flowering bulbs are dormant in autumn.
“This means we are now at the tail-end of the spring-flowering bulb planting season, meaning you will hopefully already have got your daffodils, crocus, hyacinths, scilla, chionodoxa, fritillaries, and muscari in the ground.”
The expert added: “The only spring bulb still left to plant by now should be your tulips. These are best left until last to avoid the airborne spores of tulip fire disease.”
