Improve Your Outdoors This Winter

As winter is now upon us, it’s time to improve your outdoors with Materials In the Raw. Slowing activity to your garden is a normal occurrence throughout the cold season, and we believe following the correct steps will help your garden stay healthy. The rate and detail in which you follow our steps depend on how much easier you’d like things to be when spring rolls around. A few careful steps include:

Clean Up Diseased Plants

Throughout winter, many spent plants can be left in place to rot and add nutrients to the soil. However, some may create diseases, mold, pests and funguses. When you are gardening and notice any signs of disease during the growing season but didn’t have the time to act, Materials In the Raw believe the best thing is to remove the plants that are affected so it can stop spreading. The rest of your crops or plants will provide the necessary protections for the soil. This will reduce erosion if it's kept in the same place throughout the rest of the winter season. 

Removing Weeds

Most spreadable weeds remain practicable in a compost heap or weed pile, so counter the urge to simply shift them to another part of your garden. If you are improving your outdoors this winter, Materials In the Raw believes you should dig those weeds out of your garden and place them in the compost bin or trash. By eliminating an invasive weed, it helps healthy plants sprout all over in the following year's growing season. 

Plants Cover Crops

In Sydney, some crops in winter help stop soil erosion, increase levels of organic matter and break up compacted areas in garden beds. Cover crops add nutrients and help soil produce carbon from the atmosphere into the soil. Materials In The Raw’s general guidelines are to cover crops approximately around 4-5 weeks or a month before eliminating your first frost. Some cover crops are harder than others. Materials In the Raw have the best products in stock to help you with these processes.

Harvest and Generate Your Compost

With the warmer months being well and truly over, some individuals' normal instinct is to ignore their compost heap. Materials In The Raw believes this would be a missed opportunity in certain ways. 

Firstly, using rich materials to add to your garden beds can amend deficient soils or fertilize lawns, which will nourish your soil and grow at a rapid pace. Secondly, by cleaning out finished compost, the individual can start another batch, which in some ways can be insulated against freezing winter chills. By keeping microbes lasting a little longer, start building your compost with a bundle of straws, leaves and green matter. 

Be Generous With Mulch

A great way to assist your garden with growth in winter is to use mulch as fertilizer. Mulch helps moderate soil temperature, keeping the roots of your plants moist and cool. This is specifically important in winter when your plants might wither in the windy and harsh conditions. Mulch also helps prevent soil erosion. Covering your garden with mulch will assist in protecting it from the impact of forceful wind and rain.

You can buy mulch from Materials In The Raw or use your own mix by composting annual plants like climbing plants and vines. While compost is not the same as mulch, it helps lock your soil’s existing nutrients in place.

Instant Water Interest in a Container

You most likely won’t be using your garden very much during winter, so it’s worth focusing your efforts and attention on the parts of the garden you can see immediately from your window. 

Containers are a great solution for this as you can move them around with ease until you have them just where you can see them the best. This doesn’t have to be on a patio or deck either; consider placing them into the bare patches in your borders.

Get the kids to help you plant up a pot of winter flowering annuals such as cyclamen, pansies, viola, primrose and calendula, and they will flower for you right through to the warmer spring months. Remember to layer some spring bulbs lower down in the pot to prolong the flowering season with minimal effort.

Help The Rain To Soak In

​​If your soil has remained dry for an extended period it can become water-repellent (hydrophobic), even after heavy rains. Look for water gathering on the surface, which can be fixed with a good soil wetting agent and/or seaweed-based additives. 

Eliminate heavy layers of autumn leaves that can prevent the rain from getting to the soil. Use these excess leaves to create nutrient-rich compost.

Take Time To Prune

Winter is a great time to prune for structure on young deciduous trees. Because these trees are without leaves, the form of the tree can be easily sighted, so crossing wood, double leaders and a plethora of other problems can be picked up early.

Hydrangea pruning can also be completed now the flower buds have set. The old wood can be pruned out and the shrubs pruned back to those healthy fat flower buds for a beautiful display next year.

Rose pruning is a compulsory practice during winter – any time from July onwards is most suitable. When you’ve finished, apply a seaweed-based product to condition the soil, which will help the plant with drought tolerance, resistance to frost and attack from disease and pests.

Start Something New

​​Put the kettle on and get cozy indoors as you look through Materials In The Raw’s range of gardening products and make plans for your outdoors. Think about whether you would like a new theme or design for your garden this winter season.

Is it time to add more shade or to plant native plants to welcome an increasing amount of native wildlife into your outdoor space? Bees, birds, butterflies and other little creatures will work wonders for your outdoors by assisting in pollinating veggies and gobbling up pest insects. 

So when the rain pours and the wind howls, visit Materials In The Raw and browse through our product range, plan your outdoor project and you’ll be organised and ready for action when there’s an eventual break in the clouds and the cold.