Get the holiday home garden ready for winter and give it a head start for spring

Plant your spring bulbs in the autumn

If you want beautiful tulips, crocuses, snowdrops, and daffodils in the spring, you should prepare in the autumn. Although it may sound a bit crazy to plant spring bulbs in the autumn, they need a few months to grow and sprout. The hardest part of this task is not actually planting the spring bulbs, as that's straightforward. It's figuring out where you want the flowers. Therefore, a good tip is to make a sketch of your garden. Get some markers in the colours of the flowers and make little squiggles where you want them. This way, you'll have an overview of what it will look like when your garden starts to bloom in the spring. Remember that the amount of sun, water, and warmth different spring bulbs need varies, which is a good idea to incorporate into your garden planning.

Get the fruit garden you've always dreamed of

Autumn is a good season to plant that fruit bush you've always wanted. A fruit bush can be used to adorn the garden, but it's also fantastic to make use of at the holiday home for jam and various other delicacies. Sarah and her family's holiday home is packed with blueberries, strawberries, and fruit, which they can eat anytime they are in season, which they love.

What you need to do is plant your fruit bushes in loose, nutrient-rich topsoil. With the exception of blueberries, which you should plant in acidic soil. You are very welcome to mix the soil with compost – your plants will thank you for it in the long run.

If you have your fruit or berry bush in a pot, it is very important that the pot is large and has a hole in the bottom so the water can drain out. In addition, the plant can also risk drying out faster in the pot, so you need to water it more often. Therefore, consider whether it's better to plant it directly in the ground, depending on how often you visit the holiday home.

Let it grow wild

There's nothing like tall grass and wild plants that grow naturally in Denmark, and 'wild by design' is good for biodiversity. If you let your garden grow wild, you will attract a lot of buzzing insects like bees and butterflies, who will greatly enjoy your wild-growing garden. You may not want your entire garden to be wild. You can therefore select an area that is allowed to grow wild. You can buy flower seeds at local garden centres and plant shops. You might even be able to buy them in supermarkets if you're lucky.

Rikke, Mikael and David, Stine own the beautiful holiday home, Rosmarinhaven. In their garden, the grass has been allowed to grow a little more, and they have created cosy corners. This is one of the many advantages of letting the flowers grow wild – you can create small, natural oases right in the middle of the holiday home garden.

How to approach pruning

Generally, a good rule of thumb is to prune your bushes between July and September. However, there are some varieties that do not benefit from being pruned at that time. Here are some tips you can take with you:

1. As a rule, you should prune your hawthorn hedge in the autumn if you didn't get it done during the summer. Generally, you can also thin out raspberry bushes and deciduous hedges.

2. Frost-sensitive bushes need rest. Therefore, you should not prune them before spring, when they have a chance to grow. Otherwise, you risk them dying.

3. Always use a sharp tool when pruning your plants. The cleaner your cut, the faster the plant will heal after pruning. You also need to make sure that you don't prune too close to the trunk or too far out on the branch. See if you can find a middle ground between the two to get the best result.

Get more great tips on how to get your autumn garden ready for spring here.