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Simple Gardening Tips For Looking After Flowers In Winter

By Padmapreetham Mahalingam

Most flowers need attention during winter. Sometimes, the inclement weather can make your garden tattered and weather-worn. But with clever planning, you can keep your garden ready for winter.

Most people think winter is a worthless period. However, you should remember that it is a precious season where one can expect a lot of surprises and fragrances. More importantly, the beauty of the delicate flowers in this season can lift your spirits whenever you are feeling low.

During winter, you to need to put your garden to bed and focus on the matter of cleaning up and covering up. Just because it is winter, it doesn’t mean you have to neglect your garden.

All you need to do is prepare your gardens during winter by trying to clean-up the blackened stems and foliage of annual flowers. This will help in averting plant diseases caused by pathogens. It will also eliminate the insect eggs that predominate this season. The cold weather is a perfect time for planting flowers and to look after them.

Simple Gardening Tips For Looking After Flowers In Winter

Try to keep your garden flourishing in winter by adding winter-blooming perennials and flowers that can grow in cool temperatures. You can even dig, raise beds and do general repairs during winters. Usually, harsh winters can damage plant growth and kill fragile flowers. There is a chance of the freeze causing the flowers to become limp, lifeless, black and twisted.

Even the strong plants suffer during winters as the soil becomes frozen and roots incapable to absorb the water. In turn, the flowers die of dehydration. Only with a bit of extra care, you will know how to look after flowers in winter. Here are some garden tips in winter.

Clean up
If you want to know the gardening tips in winter, make sure to dig and fork the soil to loosen it. Try to remove the weeds and then include compost and manure to the soil structure for improving the texture of the loam. Remember that by creating moisture and food reserve for your plants, you will be rewarded with fabulous flowers. Flowers are prone to quite a number of diseases and insect pests. The fungus in winters will make leaves fall and also cause stem cankers. Make sure to tidy up your garden by removing the pest eggs and disease spores that hang around in it.

Apply a layer of mulch
Mulch tries to act as insulator by giving heat and moisture to the soil. Mulch protects the root systems of the plants from cold temperatures. It even acts as a barrier keeping the sunlight and winter cold away from the soil. As a protective layer, mulch is an excellent way to suppress the weeds. Mulch protects the perennial flower plants from the freezing of the soil during winters. It guards the winter flower plants from low temperatures and desiccation from dry winters. If you want to know how to look after flowers in winter, then evergreen boughs or pine needles are some of the organic mulches that can be installed on flowerbeds and around trees.

Blanket or sheet
If you are expecting a heavy freeze, you can protect your flowering plants by covering them with a sheet or a blanket. This acts as an insulation. It helps in keeping the warm air from the ground intact around the plant. Give them warmth to protect the plants in extremely cold weather.

Watering thoroughly
If you want to know how to look after flowers in winter, try to water them steadily to keep the soil moist until new growth appears. Sometimes, you need to lessen the water for specific flowering plants. Most flowering plants would prefer the soil getting dried up to a certain extent before you water them.

Fertilise
An important garden tip in winter is to fertilise your plants. Make sure to fertilise your flowers once or twice a month with water soluble plant food, which is a must for flowering plants.

Pinching
When young plants begin to snuff out growth, it is time to start pinching out the top half inch of the stems between your thumbnail and finger. You can pinch the lateral stem as well as upright stem. Pinching helps in fast growth and lush foliage. Ensure that the fragile plants are kept in pots instead of on the ground.

These are important tips which can help you to look after flowers in winters.

Story first published: Friday, December 26, 2014, 20:06 [IST]
Read more about: gardening tips