You can’t deny that winter can leave your garden look a little bare and lack lustre when left to its own devices. However, it isn’t difficult to inject a little (or a lot, depending on how creative you are feeling) creativity into your winter garden to brighten up the scene! Getting creative will also mean that you can save money improvising with things you already have instead of buying them new. If you are lacking inspiration as to how you can fill your winter garden with creativity, this article could help!
1.Mix and Match Your Plants
Winter is a great time to mix the different plants in your garden and plant various species in the same containers. This will create an interesting focus point, wherever you choose to locate it in your garden. Ornamental cabbages look great when mixed with colourful heathers, or whatever else you wish to plant! Take this a step further and plant them in an interesting planter.
2.Make Your Own Terrarium
Terrariums are great if you want to create a winter garden, but you have very limited outdoor space as they are very low maintenance, but look wonderful! You don’t even have to spend a lot of money on buying one, you can use any large glass container, as long as you can clean it. This means that you can even use clean glass jars! The best types of plants to grow in these are succulents as they require very little maintenance, but they always look great!
3.Create Your Own Insulation
It is important to make sure the roots of your plants are kept warm during the winter in order that they don’t die. However, we don’t all have greenhouses, and purpose-designed insulation for plant pots can be costly. Instead, simply line your plant pots and containers with bubble wrap to keep the roots protected from the cold!
4.Build A Bug Hotel
Bug hotels are brilliant. Not only do they look fantastic, they attract such a wide variety of wildlife to your garden, too! You can buy ready made insect hotels but they are also easy and fun to make yourself. All you’ll need is a wooden box and stuff it with bamboo, pine cones, twigs and wood shavings to create a cosy haven for bugs to hide in over the winter.
5.Make Your Own Compost
While making your own compost might not be the most exciting thing to do, it is definitely creative and means you don’t waste any money on buying it from the garden centre. Simply fill a composter with your kitchen and (non-diseased) garden waste and leave it to break down into compost. You can also make your own compost heap by using an old container, or sectioning off a small area in your garden, in which you put all of your waste!
The cold winter weather doesn’t mean you have to stay inside, get out and be creative with your winter garden!
[Photo Credit:John McLinden]
