November Garden Care

With the cold weather firmly taking hold outside, we find ourselves wanting to spend as little time in the garden as possible. But, as much as we want to stay indoors, there are still things we need to do in the garden to make sure we’re ready for next season too.

Tidy Up Time

In order to keep on top of your garden “mess” throughout the winter, you need to get on top of it in November. Most of the trees have shed their leaves (or at least a large chunk of them) which are now sitting on top of the ground rotting away. Collecting these up and onto a compost heap now will help the ground underneath breathe and now kill off anything below. Shredding these leaves will help them to compost quicker, so if you have a lawnmower with a collection box, run this over them before popping the contents of the box in the compost.
It’s not only trees that are shedding. Take a look into your borders and pots, many plants will have started to lose leaves, or they will be dying off now. Where you can, remove any dead foliage, this will help the plants to use their energy keeping the rest of the plant alive.

Sharpen Up Your Lawn

Now that your borders are looking a little emptier, and the rate of growth on your lawn has slowed right down, this is the perfect time to sharpen up the edges of your lawn. Dig out the old edging tool and make the most of the ground being softer to tidy up your edges.
Getting the edges right at this time of year will help you to maintain them in the new season by setting out how they should grow and giving you a starting point.

Think Spring

So we haven’t got into the heart of winter yet, and here we are telling you to think about spring! November is a great time to start looking at planting your spring flowering bulbs such as tulips.
It’s also a great time to prepare your flower beds. If you haven’t already, dig out anything that you aren’t looking to carry over into the next year.

Collect Your Water

Rain water is a great way of feeding your plants, whether this be your garden on dry days, our greenhouse plants or even your house plants. You may already have a water butt in your garden, but how does the bottom look? If you’re starting to get things growing in there that shouldn’t be, or if you’ve managed to collect anything other than rain, now’s the time to clean it out.
Giving your water butt a good cleanout at this time of year is great, you know that you’ll be collecting more water in no time as the wet season is upon us, and you’ll be able to remove any debris that may be contaminating your water. If you have a good supply of water currently collected, decant some of this ino buckets or watering cans just in case you happen to find yourself with a few dry days.

Wrap Your Greenhouse

The cold weather takes its toll on so many things in and around the garden. No less, your greenhouse. This is the space where you grow things before they venture out into the garden, and should be a warm stable environment to use as a nursery. So wrapping your greenhouse with bubble wrap or fleece to help maintain the temperature.

Keep The Birds Happy

As always, feeding the wildlife in your garden is important. With a number of our usual garden visitors entering hibernation it is important to remember that not all do. With less available for our wildlife to forage at this time of year, they will need all the help that they can get. This means that we need to help as much as we can. Start adding some fat balls to your garden where you can, as this will help those like birds maintain a healthy winter weight and keep themselves warm.
Leaving out nesting materials where birds can find it will also help them to keep warm. They won’t need to use as much energy to collect what they need if we can help to make it readily available to them.

Here at Abingsdon’s Complete Garden Services, we are on hand throughout November to help out with your garden. If you’re starting to feel the cold and need a hand with any of your garden jobs get in touch with us today to see what we can do for you.