The winter season has a particular charm, with celebrations like Christmas on the horizon and snuggling up at home with hearty meals.
Nevertheless, frigid temperatures spell trouble for our gardens as frost can damage our cherished plants and flowers. But now, a green-fingered TikTok influencer may have a cost-effective solution to ward off Jack Frost.
Known to his followers as @gardening.with.ish, the garden whisperer offers up invaluable advice on nurture and nature, and his recent tip could be a game-changer. He suggests employing mulch – simply a protective layer set over the soil – to shield your greenery against the winter’s icy grip.
His go-to material? Ordinary leaves. Ish explains that mulching with shredded leaves enriches the soil with nutrients and acts as an excellent thermal insulator.
In a revealing video, he explains: “The best thing you can do is add a layer of mulch onto the soil to give it a thermal insulation, which is absolutely fantastic, but not many people talk about what’s a good type of mulch.
“Now, you can use multi-purpose compost, you can even use some kind of bark as well as a mulch. But, you’ve got an abundance of leaves, and the best thing to use sometimes is a leaves mulch.
“However, as you can see at the moment, they’re quite big leaves, so the first thing we want to do it start to shred them.”
You can tear them up individually, though he admits this can get quite time-consuming and frankly, a tad dull. If you’re after a quicker method, his tip is to grab a lawnmower.
By adjusting it to the highest setting, it will shred your leaves while leaving the grass unscathed. Over time, this helps break down the foliage.
Once they’re shredded, he advises spreading them around the base of certain plants, creating a thick layer that acts almost like a “thermal type of blanket” to safeguard against frost. It might seem a dead simple trick, but it’s effective and really easy to do.
This advice hasn’t gone unnoticed, with many thanking Ish for the suggestion. One individual recommended: “Another great option is to use a garden vac with a shredder. This works a treat to cut leaves down in size.”
Another exclaimed: “What a great idea!” Someone else also commented: “Excellent idea – I was wondering what to shred them with.”