In late Autumn/ early winter, lift the dahlia tubers and store them in pots of dry compost, as they may not survive hard frosts. If you live in a sheltered spot, you may risk leaving them in the ground.
Plant up your Spring bulbs in containers-see the Spring page. You can store them in a shed or outside under cover, so they don't get water-logged.
Compost the remaining annuals and cut back most of your perennials near to the ground, leaving a few like sunflower, euphorbia and the shaggy clematis tangutica seedheads, which look magical, covered with the rime of frost. Cover the crowns of any less-than-hardy plants with hay, skewered to the ground with twigs or covered
with cloches. Ideally, mulch with compost and leaf-mould litter.....
Now it's winter,-- a time to rest, plan next year's garden and study seed catalogues by the fire! The garden itself deserves a rest too...
In the case of a new garden or if you are redesigning it, the best time to plant hedges and trees is before the ground gets too cold. This is worth thinking about and planning carefully, because it will form the basic structure and year-round appearance of your garden. Choose hedging that prunes well, looks attractive through the different seasons will show off your other plants to advantage. Hedges can be of yew, holly ,beech, hornbeam or hawthorn. For an evergreen, flowering hedge, choose mixed shrubs, like escallonia, berberis, pyracantha, cotoneaster and fuchsia, for a stunning, ever-changing, year-round display. Prune after flowering. Deciduous hedges like beech, look very attractive if clipped well in late summer. For formal edging kept pruned twice a year, box is unbeatable.
Even a small garden has room for a few trees, chosen carefully not to overpower the rest of the garden. Flowering and fruiting ones are obvious candidates and any that have stunning foliage in the autumn, but there are many trees that come into their own in winter, such as those with ornamental bark like acers, birches and eucalyptus. Willows and dogwoods should be coppiced (pruned nearly to the ground) in the springtime to provide a stunning show for the following winter, of new whippy stems of red or yellow or lime green. Just imagine a couple of those next to a silver birch, with a holly or Portuguese laurel nearby - mouthwatering! Evergreen shrubs can dot the beds, with variegated grasses. Phormiums and bamboos are best confined to containers, since they can be invasive.
Then there are the plants that flower specifically in the winter; mahonia, with it's holly-like foliage and sprays of yellow flowers, viburnum, with waxy leaves and white or pink flowers and the wonderful hellebores, in all sorts of colours. Then there's holly and laurel berries and the lovely scented daphne, some of the cyclamen and, as winter draws into early spring, snowdrops push up through the soil.
So there's never any need to feel deprived of colour just because its winter!
