Every November, Ken and I spend a weekend sprucing up the patio pots for winter. And most years there's still so much summer bedding flowering its heart out that we can't bring ourselves to pull it all out, so some of it gets a reprieve.
By January it's a different story. One hard frost and those pots look decidedly sorry for themselves, which is the last thing you need when the January blues are already knocking. So job number one on our list for the new year is always to finish what we started.
The short version
- Pull out frosted bedding and top up winter pots with fresh compost.
- Refill with primroses, scented sarcococca and a camellia for colour until spring.
- Lift pots onto feet so they drain, and keep off frozen lawns.
- On dry days, plant bare root, prune apple and pear trees and feed the birds.
Give your winter pots a fresh start
Pull out anything the frost has turned to mush, tip out the top few centimetres of tired compost and top up with fresh. Then fill the gaps with plants that actually enjoy this time of year. These are the three I always come back to.
Primroses
Primulas are one of my very favourite plants for the start of the year. It never fails to amaze me that something so delicate looking will keep flowering through wind, rain and even snow. When they've finished, move them to a shady spot in the border and forget about them. They'll flower again next winter.
There's something for every taste, from bold and bright to soft pastels like Primrose Provence.
Sarcococca
With glossy evergreen leaves and tiny white flowers, sarcococca looks pretty in a pot or the border. But the real knockout is the scent. You'll often smell it before you see it, and that never fails to make me smile. Purple Gem has dark stems and a pink blush to the flowers, while Dragons Gate is taller with pure white blooms. Perhaps I'll just have both!
Put it by the back door or a path, so you walk past the scent every day. There are more ideas in our scented shrubs.
Camellias
No winter garden is complete without a blousy camellia showing off its fancy-pants blooms on a chilly day. Lady Vansittart has semi-double white flowers flushed and striped with rosy pink. If that's not your thing, Bonomiana has big double pink blooms striped a deeper pink.
They're happy in pots as well as borders, as long as you use ericaceous compost and give them a sheltered spot away from early morning sun.
Other January jobs worth doing
January isn't a month for big projects, but there are a few jobs we always squeeze in on a dry day:
- Lift your pots onto feet or a few bits of wood, and check the drainage holes are clear. Winter pots are far more likely to rot than freeze.
- Keep off frozen or soggy lawns. Walking on them squashes the soil and leaves footprints of dead grass.
- Plant bare root trees, shrubs and hedging whenever the ground isn't frozen. Our guide to planting bare root plants walks you through it.
- Prune apple and pear trees while they're dormant, taking out dead, damaged and crossing branches.
- Clean and sharpen your tools so they're ready for spring.
- Look after the birds. Keep the feeders topped up and break the ice on bird baths on frosty mornings.
Before I wrap up warm and get on with those pots, I'll be enjoying a quick cuppa watching the birds on the feeders. One January we counted 27 different species in the garden in the first four days alone. They're beautiful to watch but jolly hungry, so I may have to send Ken out to fill the feeders again!
For more colour ideas over the next few months, have a look at our post on winter colour in the garden. And when February comes round, our spring garden jobs will tell you what's next.
Happy gardening,
Lou
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