Winter garden tips & tour: pruning is the most important job in the garden in winter and early spring. Even though different plants have some different techniques, you can learn the overall principles of pruning and you won’t go far wrong. And why the principles of pruning apply if you’re facing winter damage.
00:00 Welcome
00:36 Tour of the Middlesized Garden in winter
01:46 The border re-vamp – it’s completely cleared at last
03:53 The basic principles of winter pruning
05:10 What to do with winter damaged plants
06:22 How to prune hydrangeas video: https://youtu.be/SX8KCNUAQWA
07:21 Check tree ties and stakes – don’t leave them on for too long
07:42 How to plant a tree video: https://youtu.be/cecir4wb2fE
08:03 The progress of the ‘mini meadow’
09:37 Garden design ideas playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrZRLHPUbGmAV4WG42hsw-GNi77pGkU-m
For garden ideas, gardening advice, garden design and landscaping ideas for your garden or backyard, subscribe to the Middlesized Garden YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/ThemiddlesizedgardenCoUk
Whether you love English garden style, cottage gardens or contemporary urban gardening, The Middlesized Garden has gardening advice and garden ideas for you.
Weekly videos cover gardening advice and garden design – from small space gardens to middle-sized garden landscaping – plus garden tours and tips for container gardening.
The Middlesized Garden practices sustainability, wildlife gardening and no till methods. If your garden backyard is smaller than an acre, join us and enjoy your garden even more!
The Middlesized Garden Complete Guide to Garden Privacy is available in Kindle or paperback in 13 countries (in English only). If you’d like your garden to feel more private, click here for availability in your country: https://www.themiddlesizedgarden.co.uk/books/the-complete-guide-to-garden-privacy/
#gardening #gardendesign #backyardgarden
For small and middlesized backyards and gardens….
See The Middlesized Garden blog: http://www.themiddlesizedgarden.co.uk/
For Amazon storefront see: https://www.amazon.com/shop/themiddle-sizedgarden
Note: links to Amazon are affiliate which means I get a small fee for qualifying purchases. It doesn’t affect the price you pay and I only recommend things I use myself or really think you’d like!
More garden ideas on Pinterest:https://www.pinterest.co.uk/midsizegarden/boards/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/midsizegarden
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/themiddlesizedgarden/
36 Comments
Really helpful video, Alexandra, and I quite like your meadow lawn 🙂 The only thing I might add regarding winter pruning is if you have stone fruit trees, such as plum and cherry, don't prune until mid-summer. Otherwise, they can get silverleaf infections that will eventually kill the tree. I sadly made this tragic mistake in the past.
Have you ever thought about doing a video with one of the Bonsai guys, its this time of year they start to repot, which could also be interesting to people with other plants in pots, so you could get some great root pruning and planting tips, also some structure ideas too.
Your garden looks good. Mine is buried under snow
Thank you so much for another delightful and educational video. I'm so glad to hear that you have had help clearing that boarder and trimming those beautiful tall topiary.
I found a place near by, an arboretum, where I can get native plants! They are having a plant sale today and I am going to go spend an obscene amount of money to get some for my English Cottage Garden! WOOT!!
Lots of good advices on pruning. I’ll be watching this again as revision. Thank you Alexandra.
Thank you for the pruning tips. I prune my really vigorous Rhodies in autumn as it's such a big job, and do the more delicate pruning on the less vigorous Rhodies in spring so as not to weaken them over winter. Your garden's winter structure is really outstanding, the evergreens, white birch, shrubs, statuary and seating look like a park!
Helpful advice!
Looking forward to what you do with the cleared out border. I have some purple crocus that my mom planted some 40 yrs ago blooming. They're all over, I'm thinking about moving some snow drops to mingle with those. Last early summer I throw some wildflower seeds in an area of my lawn along the road, nothing came of those. I'm going to try again, maybe those will pop this spring, and trying earlier will work better.
Just thought about this girl, she was in my feed last spring, maybe you could get some tips from these videos.
https://www.youtube.com/@bobbiostudio/search?query=mini%20meadow
Hello Alexandra ~ we're getting close to the Equinox, so Spring can't be far behind here in the states. I'm so envious of your climate! 15" of snow still covers my farm and a freeze in my greenhouse killed everything, so I'm just now sowing cabbage and other plants. I love this video, your garden is beautiful. Do you have a designated vegetable garden?
I find that digging out plants is very challenging. People talk about dividing perennials as if it’s very easy, but I am likely to hurt myself. Glad you had help:) excited to see what you do with the border.
Your videos really helped me this winter and last, when I first found them, to get through to spring. I'm in Manitoba so winter gardening is mostly shoveling snow and stratifying seeds.
It's refreshing the way you decide to change a design/layout if it simply doesn't please or work anymore. So many of us are hesitant about making a volte face decision about an established bed or even a larger element of our garden. May I be so bold as to suggest that I think your large border to the right of your parterre could take some quite sturdy medium to low height & mixed density evergreen shrubs to give a more enclosing/contrasting feel to your beautiful parterre ~ I feel that would help showcase its eye-pleasing classical symmetry 🙂
I revamped my old large perennial border a couple of years ago. I kept only the shrub roses and peonies and spring bulbs and a dogwood tree. I planted liatris, David Austin roses, delphiniums, lilies, nepeta and lavender and hydrangeas. I have an edging of perennial geraniums that I kept from before. In the summer I add dahlias and glads. Can't wait to see what it looks like this year. Bonny zone 5b Canada
I'm following the progress with your front "meadow" lawn. If anyone can make it look good, you can. I dearly love the ground dwelling bees that live there. You're an inspiration for gardeners to look closely at the insects in our plot of land. I can't remember the names of those bees, but I love that you are giving them attention.
I just love your videos. They are the most realistic and honest – none of this "we get thousands of dollars worth of free plants from advertisers and profess that you can do the same thing in your yard" fantasy that some of the other garden channels put forth. So thank you.
Some great tips here, thank you. I like that pruning philosophy. I try to get things pruned in winter, but every year there seems to be something (last year it was a bum hip) that gets me off schedule. We must all do what makes sense, the best we can. Looking forward to seeing your new border in spring/summer. 🙂
Alexandra, I've been wondering when you add your compost, rotted manure and any mulch, if it adds a lot of height to your beds or settles and if it ends up smothering any plants. I also hope you will take us on your design journey as you revamp your flower bed. Thank you. I enjoy your videos a lot.
THANK YOU, Aleandra. NO ONE has ever said that before on any channel I have watched. When spring comes around, I'm too busy too busy to do those things I could have done in autumn. I prune in autumn. Period. I don't want to look at dead things all winter. I want the gardens to be clean and easy to weed in the spring. Also, I hate leaving leaves on the beds during the winter because in spring, I cannot always see the bulb shoots when I'm trying to clean-out the beds and I smash them. Thank you!!!!!
Anxiously waiting for spring, with longer daylight and warmer weather. Thanks for sharing. 👍❤️😊
✂️🌱🌿🪴🌳THANKS ‼️
Hi Alexandra I have been following your channel for a few years now. I live near Cambridge now but I went to school in Faversham in the 1970s. I have learned so much from you. I spotted your neatly clipped lavender in this latest video and wanted to tell you that there were a couple of lavenders in my garden that I forgot to trim back after flowering last year because they had a second flush and were still in flower into November. Inevitably they went to seed. I was amazed to see lots of goldfinches enjoying the seeds a few weeks ago.
Having never left the dead flowers on my lavenders I had no idea that goldfinch love the seeds. I have so many lavenders that I will be leaving some for the birds next winter. I just wondered if anyone else knew that finches love the seeds 🤩
I have my dahlias in ground and covered with straw. I live in Vancouver BC, 🇨🇦. When should I uncover them?
I have such a hard time getting rid of plants, I feel sorry for the little under performers 😢😊😊
Lovely idea
Your garden looks very good in winter. I'm planting more evergreens into the garden so that it's nice in winter as well.
Another super interesting video. Thank you 🌼
I love your channel and all your videos thank you so much. I have a question, and that is: what can I grow together with and alongside very vigorous and fast growing creeping vines, I have a wall covered in thungbergia but i cant put anything near it because it will swallow any bush or small tree in no time and I would like to give her some company that she can’t climb or suffocate so easily. All I can think of right now would be iris but I’d like to know more ideas. Thank you so much 😊
This is an incredibly useful and timely video with so much advice that I can apply right now. I've got the area I can see from my kitchen window that I've been wondering how to make more attractive during our relatively long winters here in the south of Norway. I've a lawn that I'm considering putting over areas to wild flowers, and an area that I've not done anything at all to. I appreciate your sharing what's worked and what you're having second thoughts about, it's all tremendously helpful.
Thank you for this. I think I prefer a more formal front garden for a Georgian house, although I understand it is probably lass wildlife friendly. That would be a challenge to combine the two and reduce the need to cut grass on top!
I loved this video and seeing your garden!
I wonder if the reason the mini meadow isn't working is because the plant selection isn't the right scale. It's such a small area. What about a tapestry of multi colored blooming ground cover type plants mixed with short, clumping wispy "grass" textured plants?
👍💚
It will be such a pleasant chores! Thanks for the good advice! I love this spring job! I love the start of the season!
Ladybirds overwinter in the dead flowers of my hydrangea so I leave them on until Spring has ready sprung
I have many varieties of Cornus in the garden, including Midwinter Fire and Midwinter Beauty, and each month during the growing season I nip out the growing tip on every branch. Each branch then forks, creating two branches. Subsequently by winter time there’s always a thicket of colourful stems, all the same height and the overall height of the shrub is reduced.