The cold acts as a natural curb on the spread of plant pests and diseases. Slugs are less active and fungal spores will be less likely to spread
, it’s hard not to think of the first killing frost of autumn as the thief that comes in the night. This year it arrived particularly early for some – a rude surprise to those who woke up to a drastically changed landscape.
Leaves changing to their autumnal colours in Berlin's Kreuzberg district, Germany. Photograph: David Gannon/AFP via Getty Images Its role in naturally helping to control pests and diseases aside, cold weather is beneficial in other ways. For certain species of plants, for example, repeated exposure to periods of winter chilling is necessary to break seed dormancy and successfully trigger the process of germination.
Examples of some of the many species that benefit from this chilling period include some of our own native trees such as rowan , crab apple , sloe and hawthorn as well as numerous other kinds of decorative hardy annuals, perennials and shrubs from yellow rattle, corncockle and larkspur to aquilegia, lupin, rudbeckia, campanula, magnolia, lilac and witch-hazel.
Operating much like a complicated system of interlocking cogs and wheels, cold autumn and winter weather also helps to regulate other key natural processes in our gardens and allotments, from the timing of leaf fall and vegetal decay to the ways in which soil life functions at a microbial level.A gardener prune a rose bush in autumn. Photograph: Alamy/PA
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