This time of year, the British winter, is the time of year where all thoughts to gardening, the garden and your poor garden sheds are put to one side. With the Christmas and New Year festivities behind us and the days starting to get longer, might not seem like it, then your thoughts should be turning back towards your garden and planning for the spring. You would have put all your garden tools, the lawnmower and garden furniture away in your garden shed after cleaning all these items before hand – didn’t you. Oh dear!! Never mind – hopefully there will no lasting damage just a bit more elbow grease required and this can be done in your garden shed away from the cold winter winds. The lawnmower doesn’t need to be used until about March so clean off any caked on grass from the underside and the blade and clean with liberal amounts of soapy water. When dry spray liberal amounts of WD40 all over these areas and the blades.
Same thing would apply to your gardening tools, a good clean will make them that much easier when you do get back into the garden. Garden tables and chairs are mostly made from plastic or UPVC and are quite resilient, just a good clean down and drying off and it should be as good as new. At this time it is always a good time to check over your garden shed for any obvious faults. If any are apparent then all you can do at this time is to clean any dirt off and remove any damaged shed boards. This is not a good time to be re-treating as it’s important that the shed boards are nice and dry so that any dampness is not locked in.
However, the best way to look after your garden shed is to actually use it during the winter according to Saga Insurance. The poll they conducted established that over a quarter (26%) of British gardeners did not plan on using their sheds for protecting plants or for storing garden furniture. 20% said that then intended to just cover the garden furniture to give them some protection and only 10% said they would take any action to protect the barbecue.
Andrew Goodsell of Saga said that it’s false economy not to protect the barbecue as these rust quickly and will need replacing before their time. He further said that even through the British are passionate about our gardens and outside space come Spring many will be ruing not taking preventive active before the Winter. Milton Keynes home owners could end up with large bills to replace these neglected items which could have been protected in their garden shed.
Just by taking few simple steps garden owners could save themselves a great deal of worry and also could make their possessions safe from opportunist thieves. I’m sure that the hundreds of pounds saved by taking action could be spent for better things in the garden, maybe, even a larger garden shed, a replacement shed, potting shed or an extra shed. With these simple steps you can be sure that when Spring comes you will be able to able to get a rosy glow on your face from the warm sunshine rather than the embarrassment of not have done anything.