Craving greenery in the depths of winter? Spending time among plants has been proven to boost your mood. Stave off the seasonal blues by welcoming lush foliage, beautiful blooms and tantalising scents into your home and greenhouse.
Best indoor plants for winter
When it comes to plants, ‘winter interest’ doesn’t just apply to the garden. Brighten up the darkest days of the year and improve your well-being with a host of houseplants that offer celebratory colour and heady fragrance indoors.
Amaryllis
Hippeastrum, more commonly called Amaryllis, makes an ideal Christmas gift - for a loved one or for yourself! These dramatic bulbs look their best over winter, with impressive, trumpet-like flowers blooming on tall, architectural stems. Choose from pink, red, green, white or intricately candy-striped varieties to add to a kitchen sideboard or mantlepiece.
After flowering, the bulbs will die back. Treat them to a high-potash feed in autumn, when they start to grow again, to encourage another year of showstopping flowers.
Christmas cactus
Ever popular, the Christmas cactus is an easy-care tropical houseplant with trailing, succulent stems and festive flowers. Blooms come in red, white and shocking pink and are on display from late November to late January.
While Christmas cacti like bright light, keep them out of full sun; they hail from the rainforest and prefer dappled, humid conditions. A kitchen or bathroom would be ideal. Water regularly once in flower, but hold off on the hydration before and after. Resume watering again from April to September.
Cyclamen
While they may be small, cheery cyclamen can have a big impact indoors over winter. The delicate flowers come in a wide range of hues, from subtle white and pastel shades to bright reds and pinks. Foliage is generally a deep green and the heart-shaped leaves are decorated in silver markings.
As houseplants go, cyclamen are low-maintenance… ideal for forgetful waterers! They can be grown in an unheated greenhouse, but bring them inside if the temperatures are forecast to fall below 10°C.
Best greenhouse plants for winter
One of the many benefits of a greenhouse is the ability to grow delicious, nutritious produce throughout the winter. From late in the season, you can start to sow hardy plants like cabbages, onions and Brussels sprouts, ready to plant out in spring. And if you have a heated propagator, you can start off tomatoes and peppers to get a head start as the allotment warms up.
Salad and microgreens
Fresh green salad is one of the easiest and fastest crops to bring on during winter. During the ‘hungry gap’ when little else will emerge, lettuce, spinach, mustard greens and more can be sown and grown in just a few weeks. Sprout your seeds and harvest them young to enjoy as microgreens or leave them to mature and enjoy as a more traditional, flavour-packed salad.
Start seeds off in trays filled with compost. Use your finger to make shallow drills, then sprinkle a line of seeds into each and water them lightly using a watering can with a fine rose. Ensure the compost doesn’t dry out until you’re ready to harvest.
Broad beans
While hardier varieties of broad bean can be sown outdoors during a mild winter, most will germinate better in a greenhouse at this point in the year. Sown in December, you could be enjoying these productive crops as early as May.
Pack a modular tray with compost and sow one bean per cell, before watering them in. Keep your trays covered so mice don’t nibble the beans before they germinate and ensure the compost stays just moist. The young plants can be transferred outside in early spring. Harden them off during the day for a week or two, then plant them outdoors, 15-20c