With winter just around the corner, now’s the perfect time to put some measures in place to ensure that your garden and outside areas are able to withstand the wind, rain, sleet and snow – and that they also don’t pose a potential health and safety risk to you and your family.
Focusing on your hard landscaped areas like your driveway and patio is paramount at this time of year, so here are some top tips from the LW Landscapes team to help you keep your gardens in tip-top shape right through until spring.
1. Clear up debris regularly
Get the hard broom out once a week (or as needed) to sweep up any leaves that fall on your paving slabs. You can use these leaves to great effect as mulch in the garden so they don’t go to waste, helping to protect your plants from frost and providing snug hideaways for wildlife as the cold weather deepens.
2. Prioritise drainage
You don’t want puddles of water to collect on your drive or patio, so prevent this by focusing on drainage. The best way to achieve this is to consider drainage at the installation stage, with paving laid at a slant to improve surface water runoff and the use of permeable stone such as sandstone to further promote drainage.
If you already have an existing drive or patio, you could consider solutions such as French drains (trenches filled with gravel and a perforated pipe) or soakaways, which catch and disperse water.
3. Use a patio sealer
You can further protect your patio by sealing it every year or so, which will prevent weather damage from taking place at this time of year. If you have wooden decking in place rather than stone, you can also seal this to protect it from the elements and stop it from absorbing moisture.