How to Make Your Garden More Resilient to the Autumn and Winter Weather

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The colder, wetter seasons of autumn and winter can take their toll on your garden. You may find it’s soggy, brown and uninspiring which can be disappointing when it was full of colouring and seemingly thriving during the summer. But more worryingly, it’s a time when flooding, root rot and plant diseases can become a real problem. 

So, it’s a good idea to incorporate landscaping and design ideas to boost resilience and draw up a seasonal maintenance plan to help your garden thrive whatever the weather and ensure that you have a healthy garden all year round. 

Landscape for hardiness

Although garden landscaping and design is primarily thought of as a way to make a space look good, it also serves a practical function. And the right landscaping can ensure plants stay healthy and strong through the colder seasons.

Firstly, it will ensure you are planting the right plants in the right places. Some plants aren’t as hardy as others – therefore they can struggle in cold and damp conditions. So, if you’re after a garden that can cope with harsh winters, pick plants with a hardiness rating of H4 and above and plant those that need it, in sheltered positions by walls and fences to give them added protection.

If you’re a gardening beginner, short on time or just keen to boost the resilience of your outside space, then it’s also good to opt for disease-resistant varieties of trees, shrubs and flowers that aren’t attractive to pests. For instance, peonies such as 'Monsieur Jules Elie' are rodent-resistant as well as hardy. And English lavender varieties such as 'Hidcote' are hardy, have good disease resistance and help to repel pests.

It’s not just the plants you pick but how you design your garden. Raised beds can be better than traditional borders as they help to keep plant roots warmer and can improve drainage, so they’re less likely to rot away in wet weather. Raised beds also help to minimise the spread of pests and diseases. Meanwhile adding in extra screening can help to shield plants from cold and strong winds.

Improve drainage

Whether you’re landscaping the whole garden or simply making some tweaks, improving drainage and managing rainwater will help your garden through autumn and winter.

There are several ways to do this. You can dig in soil improvers, which is especially useful when you have clay soil. This helps to make it less clumpy, so water can percolate through. It’s also a good idea to think about reducing the total area of your hard surfaces. Or switch to more permeable materials and install soakaways to stop rainwater pooling in your garden.

Alternatively, you could embrace the rain and design your garden to work with the wet weather. You could channel the rain into a wildlife pond or rain garden and plant it up with water-loving plants.

Provide shelter and warmth for plants

To help plants survive winter, it’s good to include shelter and warmth. For the least hardy of your plants, think about moving them into a greenhouse or cold frame or covering them with cloches or fleeces.

Walls, fences and trees around the boundary will block out cold winds but it’s also good to add mulch to beds and straw to the bases of plants for extra warmth.

Make your garden resistant to pests and diseases

Aside from being picky about what you plant, there are improvements you can make in your garden to ensure it’s more resistant to pests and diseases.

Providing food and water for birds can help to control slugs and other pests such as rosemary beetles that are active during autumn and winter.

However, hungry mice, rats, and squirrels are more likely to visit your garden in autumn and winter if you have bird feeders. Rodents will not only help themselves to winter veggie patches but will eat roots and bulbs too. So, they can be a problem for your garden. You can deter them by fitting baffles to your feeders and storing bird food in sealed containers. It’s also wise to clear clutter out of your garden, so they have fewer places to hide.

Dead and dying material such as old tree stumps and fallen leaves can build up during autumn and winter, but this can help spread fungal diseases. Sweeping up leaves will help reduce the spread of common problems such as powdery mildew and black spot and removing a tree stump should reduce problems such as honey fungus.

Take the time to carry out maintenance

This is why seasonal garden maintenance is so important. But apart from tidying up and clearing clutter, what helps to boost the resilience of your garden?

Treating fences and sheds will make them more durable in wet weather and resistant to stormy weather. Similarly, cleaning out the greenhouse will ensure it isn’t harbouring pests and diseases.

Apart from improving soil and managing rainwater, it’s also a good idea to scarify and aerate lawns, so they drain better too. This can also help to keep the grass strong and healthy, so it survives the winter months. Pruning trees and shrubs is just as important as removing diseased and weak stems will help keep them in good condition. 

Following these steps should help to keep your garden looking great and thriving even during the harsher winter months, meaning you can utilise your garden space all year round and ensure it looks it's best. 

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