The winter season brings a season of holiday cheer with the cosy evenings in and tasty comfort meals.
But, while it sparks joy indoors, our beloved garden greens face the harsh touch of the frost, but there’s no need to worry. A gardening influencer has unveiled a brilliant hack to shield your plants from the frost, and it won’t cost you a penny.
Meet Ish, or as he’s known on TikTok, gardening.with.ish, the plant wizard whose garden knowledge is helping hundreds online. In his latest viral video, Ish reveals all you need is a heap of leaves to create an effective, nutrient-rich mulch to cocoon your plants in the cooler months.
He emphasises the importance of finely shredding the leaves for optimal benefit, and it’s simple to do. If you follow his simple guidance, you should be able to ensure your blooms keep blooming.
The best part about the easy trick is that it won’t cost you a thing. What’s not to love?
The gardening guru explained: “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 rip them up one by one, although he admits this method can be time-consuming and tedious. For a quicker approach, he recommends using a lawnmower.
By putting it on the highest setting, this should allow the device to shred your leaves without cutting the grass simultaneously. Over time, this will help break down the leaves.
Once shredded, he applies them to the base of the stem of some of his plants, ensuring a thick layer that provides a sort of “thermal blanket” to protect them from frost.
It may seem a straightforward trick, but it’s effective and easy to execute. Many people were quick to thank Ish for the advice.
One person said: “Another great option is to use a garden vac with a shredder. This works a treat to cut leaves down in size.”
Another wrote: “What a great idea!” A third also replied: “Excellent idea – I was wondering what to shred them with.”
