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Create a Winter Garden
4 December 2020

The Perfect Winter Plants

For many plants, the frosty winter months are when their beauty really shows. Whether its blossoming flowers of a deciduous or striking evergreen leaves decorating the gloomy air, winter is the perfect season for dazzling garden colour and texture.

1. Colourful Foliage and Flowering Hedges

The Viburnum tinus hedge which is a winter flowering evergreen the tiny pink bud-like flower clusters are changing into blue-black berries as we speak.

Variegated species come into their own adding bright greens, yellows and creams to the winter garden at a time when everything looks rather grey – Oleaster “Gilt Edge” or “Limelight” and Griselinia “Dixon’s Cream” would be good examples of full height species and Euonymus “Emerald and Gold” or “Emerald Queen” for low growing compact hedges.

Dogwoods are at their best – Cornus Alba with its red stems (or the even brighter red stems of Cornus Sibirica) looks great planted in a drift alongside Cornus Stolonifera with its bright yellow stems – Dogwood is particularly good set against a snowy background.

And give a thought to the birds struggling for food by providing a selection of species with berries – Holly, Pyracantha, Cotoneaster franchetii, Berberis are all good examples or you can see our ultimate guide to hedges with berries for even more fruitful options.

2. Evergreen Hedging

Evergreen shrubs for hedges which have been trimmed to a very neat shape look great when dusted with snow or frost. Yew (Taxus baccata) looks particularly stunning for this but other good species for this effect would be Leylandii, Lonicera nitida, Privet, Portuguese Laurel, Box and, although not a full evergreen, Beech is also very good for a strong, structural hedge.

Protecting Plants in Winter

Although winter is a great time for planting, sometimes the weather can stop you in your tracks. If you find yourself with a new delivery of bare root or root ball hedge plants but the ground is frozen or water logged, here’s a guide that will help you to find the best way to protect your plants until the conditions improve.

1. Watering

Determining when frost will strike is not easy, especially with the unpredictable UK weather. However, as temperatures have dropped and frost is expected, watering two or three days prior to its presence will help protect your plants. Adding water when frost is immanent can seem a confusing task, however wet soil will hold more heat than soil that is dry so it is vital in these conditions. Remember that it is just as bad to over water as it is to under water your plants. Over watering in these circumstances will be consequential in early spring as doing this allows your plants to be exposed to frost heave.

2. Cover Your Plants

Covering tender garden plants in the evening will help retain heat and protect them from freezing as temperatures drop overnight. Ensure that covers are removed during the day so they are exposed to sunlight, or else tender plants may suffocate.

Choosing a Cover

Cold Frames

  • Retains heat and provides protection from harsh winds and frost
  • Usually made from timber or plastic and has a hinged or sliding lid for ventilation – available to buy from most garden centres or you can make your own
  • For extra protection, apply a layer of mulch or bubble wrap within the cold frame
  • Great for raising early seedlings or hardening off plants started indoors

Cloches

  • Cloches come in various shapes and sizes but were traditionally bell-shaped – often made from plastic, polythene sheet or corrugated polycarbonate
  • A transparent protective structure, which can be moved around your garden to protect various crops
  • Can be used to prepare and warm your soil before planting – Cover selected planting site with your cloche and leave for about a month

Fleece

  • Spread over your plot to keep the soil warm before planting then cover your planted seeds again to protect them until seedlings begin to emerge
  • Allows some moisture through so the need to frequently water underneath is reduced

Bubblewrap

  • Makes a great insulator
  • Use to warm your soil prior to planting, protect plants from frost or to insulate cold frames or unheated greenhouses

Greenhouse or Polytunnel

  • Provides the ultimate protection with plenty of growing space
  • Extra insulation can be added in the form of bubble wrap or fleece

Mulching

  • Layer around plants for protection from cold and frost
  • Also good for nourishing the soil

3. Remove Snow

This applies mostly to the larger, dense evergreen plants that are big enough to gather snow on their foliage. You may see small snowflakes falling from the sky and with a blink of an eye, there is a thick layer of snow that has the tendency to make UK residents have a meltdown (no pun intended). When collected on foliage, this thick layer of snow will put a large amount of pressure on the plants structure and can result in damage to branches. Be sure to gently shake the foliage of these plants to remove the collection of snow as this will reduce the combined weight that heavy snow fall can create.

4. Leave Fallen Foliage

Gardeners have the tendency to remove fallen foliage as it’s not the most attractive look. It may not be the best looking option, but it certainly is beneficial and appeals to the lazy gardener as it requires no work. The fallen foliage is a great heat insulator and will protect the soil from becoming frozen. This is a great excuse to have a ‘spring clean’ once the weather warms up and clear away the leaves once they’re no longer needed.

5. Containers

Frost proof containers are available to prevent traditional pots from cracking as this allows efficient access for frost to gain access to the main root system. On the other hand, lift pots and containers inside for protection.

6. Raised Garden Bed

As cold air collects at ground level, adding a raised garden bed will contribute towards the protection of your tender plants during winter. The structure of these raised beds will make the previously mentioned option of covering your plants a lot easier.

Root Type

1. Pot grown plants

For pot grown plants the first thing you need to do is keep them in their pots as this will protect the root mass from being exposed to freezing conditions which can easily damage or break small roots, resulting in a weak start for the plant.

You can store your pot grown hedging and trees for up to a week in a cool, dry shed or garage, or if space is limited, they can be kept outside, lying them flat if there is a risk of strong winds blowing them over. It’s best to store them away from warm temperatures as your plants can suffer shock if there is a dramatic environmental change such as moving them back outside to the cold when planting. As with all containerised plants, you need to ensure they are kept on a level, free-draining surface to avoid the soil becoming water logged.

You can plant your container grown hedge plants as soon as the ground thaws and you can feel some moisture in the soil.

2. Root ball plants

Root ball plants are delivered with a hessian sack surrounding the root system and soil mass, and this should be left on during both storage and planting.
Root ball plants should be stored in a cool, dry place sheltered from winds and frost, and extra insulation can be added by covering the hessian sack with straw. The hessian should prevent the root ball from drying out but you can give it a light watering should you notice any signs of desiccation.
As soon as any snow or frost has disappeared and the ground has properly thawed, you can safely plant your root ball hedge plants, leaving the hessian sack on – this will decompose naturally over time.

Root Ball
Bare Root

3. Bare root plants

Bare root plants should be planted as soon as possible after delivery, however when planting conditions are poor, it is safe to store them until the planting site is more hospitable.
The main thing to remember when storing bare root plants is to keep the roots moist. You should keep them in a sheltered, dry and cool location such as a shed or garage, and they can be stored like this for up to a week.
After a week, if the conditions of your planting site have still not improved, you will need to temporarily plant your bare root plants. You can either ‘heel them in’ in a trench in your garden or plant them in a free-draining container with compost around the roots. Providing you water regularly, both of these solutions can be successful for up to a few weeks.

Can you trim hedges in winter?

One of the most popular questions our customer service team is asked is ‘how to prune hedges‘, ‘can hedges be pruned in winter’, ‘when should hedges be trimmed‘ and so on. When growing a new hedge, ‘formative’ pruning (shaping a tree/hedge whilst it is young) is carried out in it’s first couple years and this should be done in winter or spring. Once you have your established hedge, ‘maintenance’ pruning is carried out usually once a year in the spring and summer months. Depending on if your hedge is formal or informal, formal hedges require a maintenance prune two to three times a year. An informal hedge only needs clipping once a year, again in the spring or summer. The difference between a formal and informal hedge is how tightly the leaves have been clipped.

For more information on pruning and also for pruning techniques, please see the RHS hedge trimming advice page.

Winter can be a tough time for plants, however these measures can be taken to protect and help them prosper. If you have any questions on anything in this blog, or want to share your own great tips for winter gardening, please drop us a message on Facebook or Tweet us, we would love to hear from you!