5 Ways to Brighten Up Your Winter Garden

Your garden may not be the place you want to spend the most time in during winter, but it doesn’t have to look drab and grey. Even if the weather isn’t the warmest, or the driest, your garden can still be something lovely to look at through your kitchen window! Plus, you can use this time to get your garden ready for the first glimpses of spring, which isn’t that far away.

Add some solar lights

Possibly the most literal way to brighten up your garden, solar lights are an easy and eco-friendly way of brightening up your outdoors. Whether they’re tucked away in the darker corners of your garden, dotted amongst your flowerbeds, or hung on your fence, they’ll bring a lovely dose of light while the days are short and dark.

Give a small tree a home

Liven up your doorstep or walkway with a small tree or shrub! They can be in a pot or planted directly into your garden – whatever you think would look best in your space! Some good small trees are holly, which are a lovely festive addition to a winter garden, or crab apple, which burst with gorgeously bright red fruits throughout winter.

Build a bulb lasagne

Planting bulbs in a layered form, like a lasagne, means that flowers will pop up one after the other, bringing colour to your garden from late winter through to spring. Try out this method if you want to give it a try!

Layer 1 (at the bottom): allium with huge purple flowers
Layer 2: honey garlic with cream and pink heads
Layer 3:  grape hyacinth with blue trumpet flowers
Layer 4: (at the top) – crocus, whose beautiful purple flowers will be the first to bloom in February!

Add a bird bath

Here at Garden Ability, we are big lovers of garden birds, and they are the perfect way to bring joy to your garden this winter. What could be brighter than a robin’s gorgeous red breast? A great way to attract birds to your garden is to provide water. Not only do they need it for drinking, but also to clean their feathers. As soon as you put out a bird bath, they’ll be flocking there to enjoy the spoils of your garden!

Feed the birds

If the birds are using the bird bath in your garden, make sure you’re also leaving some food out for them too! There are often fewer natural food sources in the winter for birds, which means that anyone who puts food out in their garden is sure to get quite a few visitors. Birds need extra calories to stay warm, so make sure you’re putting plenty of food out!