The New Year is here and the question gardeners will have is… where to start? Worry not, here are the essential jobs you can do first to get you ahead in 2025.
Stain fencing
Staining your fence panels is a great task to carry out each year, enhancing the natural beauty of the wood, and protecting against harsh weather. Choose a day with low humidity, above-freezing temperatures, with no rain.
Also, do this when the wood has little direct sunlight, to stop the stain from drying too fast. Before staining, remove any hardware, and clean thoroughly with a damp cloth. You can also use sandpaper to remove any rough spots.
Finally, simply stain the fence. It should be touch-dry within a couple of hours.
Reorganise the shed
This is a great way to start the new year, making your shed a more functional space before the growing season starts.
Begin with a good cleanout, decluttering anything you no longer have a use for or have replaced. Then, you can assess your needs for your shed. Is it functional? Make sure when you reorganise, it works well and safely for your uses.
Planting bare-root/hedging
Planting new hedges is best done between October and February, while the plants are dormant. This is also true of bare-root hedges, which are particularly easy to plant while dormant.
Opting for bare-root hedges is often more affordable than purchasing them in containers.
Both evergreen and deciduous hedges can be planted until late winter, so January is the perfect time. Choose a day when the ground isn’t waterlogged or frozen for the best results.
Sow with protection
Plants that can be grown in a cold frame, polytunnel, greenhouse, or heated propagator in January include microgreens, chillies, aubergines, peppers, tomatoes and sweet peas. Chillies are particularly good to start under cover in January, as they need a long growing season. The sooner you start with these fruits, the better.
The sooner you start with planting, the better (Image: Emilija Randjelovic)
Help the birds
Birds need water year-round, and winter is no exception.
When it is freezing outdoors, there are a couple of ways you can keep fresh water available for birds.
One method is to leave some fresh water out for them in plastic or rubber drinking bowls. These materials are better insulators, so may prevent freezing for longer.
Use larger containers if you can, as these will take longer to freeze. Position them in a sunny position for as much warmth as possible.
A great hack is to position a lightweight ball, such as a tennis ball or ping pong ball, on the water’s surface. The presence of this ball will consistently agitate the water’s surface, making it harder to freeze.
Birds need water year-round, and winter is no exception (Image: Jake Stephen)
Smart ways to boost soil this winter
We might think life in our gardens is dominated by plants, wildlife, insects and humans. However, the soil in the garden is also teeming with life.
One handful of soil from your border contains more microorganism life than there are humans on the planet. It’s even thought to house 90% of all fungi species and 50% of the Earth’s bacteria species.
The proliferation of these microorganisms is the key to healthy soil, aiding high performance from each plant growing in it.
They break down organic matter, facilitating its ability to be taken up by plants, protect plants from diseases, and adapt and purify the environment.
WASTE NOT: Recycle kitchen scraps (Image: Getty)
Smart ways to boost soil (Image: Martin Novak)
We talk about feeding birds plants in the garden, and even the barbecue feeding us, but the most important thing is to remember to feed your garden soil too. Microbes need oxygen in the spaces between the soil. If it’s just solid, waterlogged clay, it becomes stagnant. On the opposite extreme, desert-like conditions are created in particularly sandy soil in a hot border.
With no water for these crucial microbes, the soil becomes weak and lacks vital nutrition.
Finally, if organic matter (such as leaves) fails to land on the soil to be decomposed, this means there is a lack of shelter, habitat and food. This results in a reduction in microbes and a drop in plant health. We have all seen this in plant borders positioned within a sea of Tarmac in supermarket car parks.
Feeding your soil is easy to do and incredibly fulfilling. Firstly, it’s all about digging in organic material to rot down in the ground. For homemade compost, include rotted-down kitchen plant waste such as potato peelings, broccoli stems, carrot peelings, and more. But don’t forget ripped-up cardboard like egg boxes and paper, which will add carbon. Collect grass clippings, broken-up branches and raked leaves from the garden for a balance of green and brown material. Once rotted down, this energises soil.
Rotted farmyard manure can be purchased or given freely by local farmers or horse stables. This is a fantastic addition to the soil, as it’s nutritious and helps with the soil structure.
You can buy bags of garden soil. Miracle-Gro produces Peat Free Premium Garden Soil that revitalises your soil.
INSULATION: Protect with bark chippings (Image: Larisa Stefanuyk)
Adding mulches of composted bark chips to the surface of your soil helps in many ways, including water retention, insulation and breaking down to feed the soil.
Leaf mould is also a great natural soil conditioner. Collect up leaves from your garden, bag them up and then let them rot down for a healthy soil snack. See how to make it with the video on my YouTube channel,.
While digging these soil boosters into your garden you will receive a helping hand during the winter – the frost expands and contracts the earth to helps its integration.
SOIL SNACK: Make your own leaf mould (Image: Getty)
FOCUS ON: Garrya elliptica (Silk tassel bush)
Garrya elliptica (Silk tassel bush) (Image: Marjan Cermelj)
The beautiful silk tassel bush lives up to its name with long silver catkins in the midst of winter resembling dangling icicles. It’s difficult to classify the use of this plant as it can be a large shrub in a border, a small tree, or if secured to a wall and trimmed, it can act as a climbing plant – even though it’s really leaning on the wall. Its foliage is interesting too. Looking down on it, the upper side of its oval, crinkle-edged leaves, are green. Looking up at the underside, the leaves are haunting grey.
A well-drained soil in a bright position is ideal. I have one in my front garden – it’s a big bush about three metres high and even more on the spread.
It tends to produce tassels very well one year and more modestly the following.
DID YOU KNOW?
“The flowering crest of a cabbage” (Image: David Gomez)
- The name of the dogwood plant has some interesting origins. It comes from when their smooth sticks were used by butchers to make meat skewers known as “dags” or “dogs”, hence we get dogwood.
- One of the best ways to support your houseplants is by watering them with rainwater. This comes with several benefits, including a more neutral pH, whereas tap water is more alkaline. This is particularly helpful to acid-loving plants.
- In the 1500s, tomatoes were first introduced to Europe, and they had an interesting nickname. They were known as golden apples, as they were small and golden in colour rather than theirnow more familiar red shade.
- When broccoli was first cultivated over 2,000 years ago by Italian farmers, it was named broccolo. This literally means “the flowering crest of a cabbage”.