Page 30 - Cornwall Issue 4 2025

GARDENING
WINTER IN THE GARDEN

Gardening Tips:
Neaten Up
Downtime may seem like a good idea, but creating an abundant winter
garden is even more rewarding. Planting an indigenous garden, attracting • Clean and repair garden tools, especially
birds and other wildlife, and neatening up your garden should be at the pruning tools such as secateurs, hedging
top of your list this month. shears, clippers, saws and mowing
blades.
• Neaten up pathways and paving.
• Refurbish old pots and water features.
• Fix wooden garden furniture such as
benches, bridges and trellises.
• Check the staking of plants and ensure
their ties are not too tight.
• Mulch garden beds with compost or mulch
for the winter period to protect the roots
from frost.
• It is a good time to order bare-rooted fruit
trees, vines and roses for planting in July/
August.
• Put out bait amongst fruit trees for fruit
flies.
• Stop feeding roses to prevent lush young
growth from appearing, as they should
harden off for winter.
• Water the lawn once a month and stop
fertilisation until spring.
• Water azaleas, camellias and shrubs once
a week.
• Remove the soil from your old flower pots.
Plant and Sow Replace them with new potting mix. and
replant with new plants. This is necessary
• Add colour to your garden with winter-flowering plants such as as the nutrients in the soil get leached out
pansies, stocks, dianthus, petunia and daffodils. and the plants get root-bound in the pots.
• Plant lobelia, primula and foxgloves in shady areas of your garden. • Pinch off faded flowers from Iceland
• Now’s the time to harvest winter veggies such as leeks, carrots, poppies, calendulas, violas, and pansies
Brussels sprouts, parsnips, cabbage and peas. to encourage further flowers.
• Plant cabbage, cauliflower, leeks, onions, celery and globe • Foliar feed all existing annuals and bulbs
artichokes in your vegetable garden.
• Plant fruit trees such as flowering peaches, plums, and crab apples. fortnightly or use organic compost before
They will settle their roots in the ground ahead of the spring growing the cold weather sets in.
season. • Cover sensitive plants in colder regions
• Add fynbos to your indigenous garden. Popular varieties include with lightweight frost cover, hessian,
Leucospermum (pincushion), Ericas and Leucadendrons. straw, or cardboard boxes.
• Plant camellia varieties, cymbidium orchids and gardenia in semi-
shaded areas.
Prune and Trim

• Prune vines,
plum, peach,
apple, pear and
apricot trees at
the end of June.
• Remove old
flower stalks
and stringy
stems from focal
plants such as
flax (phormium),
cordylines,
penstemons and
aloes.

Source: Turfnet

28 Cornwall View • Issue 4 2025