After all the work you’ve put into building up your garden for the summer, now autumn is here to supposedly lay waste to all your efforts. However, just because the leaves and plants are starting to die, doesn’t mean you should leave your whole garden to decay. Everything will start to bloom again in spring, but your lack of actions now will just create more work for you when that time comes. Giving your garden a little TLC before winter will make spring cleaning a little easier for you.

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Clear the leaves

It might be tempting to just leave the fallen leaves in your garden to decompose, but you’ll be causing yourself more work in the spring. Allowing thick piles of leaves to gather on your lawn will prevent sunlight from reaching the grass, therefore suffocating it. Leaving leaves for even just three weeks, may be enough to damage your grass and leave a muddy mess. Instead, you can rake up a few piles under the hedges to make shelter for wildlife, and use the rest to make a leaf mould.

Trim your trees

Trees need to be pruned regularly to maintain their aesthetic and as a safety precaution, but excessive pruning can actually do more harm than good. It’s usually best to call in a professional tree surgeon to do this, but you can also click here to check out a range of electric chainsaws if you want to do it yourself. As a general rule, if a tree is pruned before the spring growth flush, the tree’s growth will be maximized and the wounds will close faster – therefore pruning in late autumn or winter is best, when the tree is dormant. Now is the time to get rid of dead branches and limbs so that your trees have a healthy bloom in spring.

Tidy your borders

As the garden starts to lose some of its lustre, it’s the perfect time to move poorly placed plants, or adjust anything that you didn’t get right the first time while the soil is still warm. This is also the best time to dig up any summer flowers; they tend to struggle in the winter months and can be a real liability to maintain during the fall, so they will be more useful in the compost pile. Instead, you should try planting some winter flowers to keep your garden looking vibrant year round. Asters, pansies, and chrysanthemums grow perfectly in autumn, and they add some color to a slowly dying garden.

Spring clean your greenhouse

Ironically, autumn is actually the best time for spring cleaning your greenhouse; since you’ve probably harvested most of your produce, you might as well tidy up what’s left in the greenhouse to help reduce overwintering pests and diseases. Remove the plants before sweeping out any plant debris. Disinfect the greenhouse paths and staging, and the inside of the glass too, just remember to ventilate the greenhouse for the next few days so it dries properly.