When the clocks go back, this doesn’t mean that gardening duties stop, unfortunately. Bucksburn in Bloom’s President Drew Levy offers some timely tips for November as winter approaches.
Your lawn might be covered in leaves and raking can be a chore – so take out your mower, attach its collecting box, select a high lift setting so as not to cut the grass and use it as a vacuum cleaner.
Not only does this make it easier to collect the leaves, but it also helps chop them up, aiding the rotting process.
They can go on your compost heap or into your compost bin, but remember to cover them with an old piece of carpet or close the compost bin lid, as they’ll all blow out again if you don’t.
If you don’t have a compost bin, but have a spare area at the side or back of your shed, you can collect them as before and put them in black bin liners or empty compost bags, adding just a little water to moisten them. Tie the top of the bag and put some small holes in the polythene with your finger to allow air in to help the rotting process.
The leaves will, over winter, turn into leaf mould, which you can put into your flower beds. If you have Acers in your garden, their leaves take a little longer to rot down due to their structure, but they will still turn into the leaf mould that you are looking for.
Worried about your garden pond freezing during the winter? Just drop a couple of tennis balls into the water and this will keep the iced water moving and help prevent the cracking of the pond liner or sides. If you have fish in your pond, take out the tennis balls during the day so that there is a hole to allow the fish to breathe and a place where you can put in their food.
If you haven’t put your spring bulbs in yet, there is still time to plant them before the end of November.
Plant pots which stay outdoors all winter can be helped from freezing to the floor and cracking by cutting small squares of wood to place under them to raise them up off the frozen ground.