Helping the garden to safely endure winter hardships is the main task of a gardener in the middle of winter. There is much work in the garden in UK in January.
Roots of trees and shrubs need gardening jobs. Trees on compacted and insufficiently moist soil are threatened by desiccation of tissues under the influence of winds and frosts. The shoots of berry bushes damaged by diseases and delayed growth in autumn suffer more often from winter desiccation.
What can you do to help your garden plants in winter?
- After a snowfall, it is useful to hoe with snow not only the trunk circle, but also the trunk of the tree.
- A large amount of heavy wet snow or ice crust on the branches can harm plants. Shake off the snow from the branches or prop up old and weak branches of trees with poles. Tie the columnar trees loosely in several places.
- Trample the snow several times during the winter: the plants will feel warmer, and the mice will not be able to get to the trunks of young trees. Hoe strawberry bushes with snow, delay the snow with brushwood, shields, plant residues.
- If you have not done this before, it is not too late to carry out the following work in January: go through the garden, inspect the exposed crowns carefully. Notice sick fruits spreading diseases on the branches, cut them off and burn them in a bonfire. Send the cut nests of hawthorn, golden-tailed and other pests to the fire.
- In January, it is already worth taking care of the trunks of fruit trees. Due to sharp fluctuations in daytime and night-time temperatures, the barque may break frost cracks may occur. On a warm sunny day, you need to clean up trunks carefully, apply a tight bandage of gauze and cover the whole place with tree-wound paint. When it dries, wrap the trunk with burlap, cover the top with a film and leave it until spring.
- Check out the autumn whitewash. If it has peeled off, restore it in the thaw. If bodies of trees were not whitewashed in the fall, do the following job in January: rake the snow, whitewash and re-hoe the trees.
Try do all listed above jobs in January, it may be too late in February.
