Five tips to make your garden winter-ready

I . Pruning trees

Pruning trees

• We now know that regular pruning is important for the healthy growth of a tree or shrub. After all, pruning is growing! But how can you best prune trees and when?
• During the winter pruning of trees (November, December, January & February) we prune the trees, such as willow, poplar, ash, oak and alder. The grape farmer prefers his winter pruning in January or February. We cut the woody branches to shape it again.
• Before January birches, nuts, grapes and acers must be pruned. Juice flow from these trees starts again in January.
• The black alder or hazel that is deposited just above the ground are also treated in the winter.
• Slate trees, such as maple, chestnut, hornbeam, plane trees, linden, elm and fruit trees also bear the pruning, and this until March, although you always have to look at how the season evolves.
• Between January and March we prune fruit trees, such as apple, pear, cherry and plum.
• Autumn is also the ideal period for pruning for many plants such as hedges such as boxwood or ivy.

Pruning roses

• Prune roses to knee height (approx. 40cm). Wait until the roses have finished flowering. Depending on the weather, this can be earlier or later in the autumn.
  Remove all leaves including the fallen leaves. The leaves often contain mould spores or rust. If you remove them, you will prevent this leaf from directly affecting the new leaf in the spring.

Chipping branches, green waste and garden waste

• It is best to shred the pruning waste with a wood chipper according to the capacity of the pruning wood. There is a choice between private shredders and professional shredders. You can buy a shredder or rent a shredder.
• A wood chipper with the Jo Beau Drum Technology™ is the best option you can choose for. This Jo Beau knife drum not only chips branches with leaves, but the unique Jo Beau blades also automatically pull them inside the machine and ejects the wood chips and fine green waste through the chute directly in the wheel barrow or trailer.
• Make sure that the set of knives and replacement knives for your shredder are not only 'fitting' (read imitation/copied/pirate), but that they are original from Jo Beau. This is the only way to guarantee the long life span, the optimal operation of your wood chipper and the warranty period to which you are entitled.

II . Preparing the lawn for winter

Disposal of fallen leaves

• The first step is to clean up the lawn by cleaning up all the leaves and branches. You can do this with a rake, but on larger lawns the leaves can be sucked up with a lawnmower or lawn tractor.

Mowing the lawn

• As long as the temperature remains above 6 degrees, the grass will continue to grow. From this month on, don't cut the grass too short anymore. So set the mower a little higher.

Scarify the lawn

• If a felt layer has developed, scarify the grass once more with a professional scarifier that you can buy or rent. And for optimal maintenance it is recommended to fertilize the lawn with a winter fertilizer.
  Tip: do not scarify too intensively in autumn. For example, once in the longitudinal direction.

Trimming lawn edges

• To let the lawn go into the winter neatly, you can cut the lawn edges again.

III . Grinding out stumps

Remove tree stumps

• Now that we are working on the somewhat coarser works, it’s a good moment to remove treestumps.
  The milling of the tree roots takes little time and therefore very cost effective because the stump does not need to be fully excavated. Grinding out tree trunks is a machine method of removing stumps. With a compact professional stumpgrinder you can easily get through the house or a garden gate to the back of the garden.
  The remaining sawdust can be mixed with fresh soil to close the pit or disposed of in the compost heap. After stumpgrinding, the soil can be sown, planted or paved again.

IV . Planting the garden

Plant trees, hedges and shrubs

• Autumn and winter (outside the frost periods) are the ideal seasons for planting new shrubs or trees in the garden. The plants are at rest so they are less "disturbed" when transplanting. In addition, roots resume growth faster than branches and leaves in spring, and must therefore be planted in a good time.

Planting bulbs

• If you want to enjoy the flowering bulbs in spring, you have to be there on time. Autumn is the time to plant (spring-flowering) bulbs. So you will enjoy early in the spring a lot of color splendor. Now plant daffodils, tulips, blue grapes, snowdrops and crocuses. In spring you can plant summer-flowering bulbs. If you do it right, you can enjoy flower bulbs in your garden for months on end.

V . Create a compost heap

Select composting system

• Instead of throwing all the autumn leaves into the GFT container, you might as well start with a compost heap right away. Self-composting reduces the amount of waste and provides free plant food to fertilise your garden.
  Make sure that your own compost heap is varied and that there is enough air in it, which helps to speed up the process