As Makuru settles over Boorloo (Perth) and surrounds, the cold and wet of winter can make the garden feel sleepy—but this quiet season is actually one of the most important times to set your patch up for spring success.

Here at Urban Revolution, we love winter for what it really is: a time of deep nourishment, thoughtful planning, and slow, regenerative magic. Whether you're growing food, flowers, or habitat, there are plenty of meaningful jobs you can do right now to support your garden—and the planet.

1.🌾 Feed Your Soil

Winter is all about building from the ground up. Raised veggie beds can benefit from adding compost, aged manures, worm castings, and microbe-rich soil amendments like Earth Food to replenish and activate your soil biology. Top it off with mulch to protect bare patches and support that all-important underground life.

While inputs like rock dust, worm wee and castings, and microbial rich liquid foods like seaweed tonics are ok, just be mindful of not adding nitrogen and phosphorous rich foods like manure or any granular fertilisers where it is not needed - such as around trees going dormant for winter. This will help to avoid excess nutrients ending up in our waterways with the run-off after heavy rains. 

2. 🧄 Plant Cool-Season Veggie Crops

You can still plant hardy favourites like:

Garlic
Potatoes
Broad beans
Peas
Brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage)
Leafy greens (spinach, kale, silverbeet)
Carrots
Beetroots
Swedes
Turnips

They’ll grow steadily through the cold and be ready for harvesting in spring and beyond.

3. 🌼 Sow Flowers for Pollinators and Colour

It’s the perfect time to sow everlastings, sweet peas, and other cottage garden blooms. Not only will they bring vibrant spring colour to your space, but they’ll also support pollinators and beneficial insects that keep your garden healthy year-round.

4. 🌱 Plant Native Tube Stock

Native plants LOVE winter! With moist soil and cooler temps, it’s the ideal time to get tube stock in the ground so it can establish deep roots before summer hits.

Thinking bigger? Maybe it’s time to ditch that tired old lawn verge and replace it with a native garden. Our native, nectar-rich plants attract birds, bees, butterflies—and cut down on your water bill and weekend mowing!

5. ✂️ Prune Your Deciduous Fruit Trees

Now the abundance of summer and autumn is over and your deciduous trees have dropped their leaves to prepare for dormancy, it’s time to shape up your apples, pears, and stone fruit trees. Remove dead or diseased branches, open up the centre for airflow, and reduce overall height for easy picking come harvest time. 

6. 🪛 Clean & Maintain Tools

Don’t forget your gear! Sharpen your secateurs, scrub off rust, and oil wooden handles. Fix any wobbly beds or trellises now while things are a little quieter. You can check our tool maintenance blog here for more tips. 

7. 🐌 Control Winter Pests

Slugs and Snails love the moisture and cooler weather, so stay ahead of the game by using beer traps, crushed eggshell or copper tape, or simply hand-picking at dusk and humanely dispatching them. 

Look out for the cabbage moths around your brassicas as they look to lay their eggs. Their hungry caterpillar babies will decimate your winter crops seemingly overnight upon hatching. Try the cabbage moth decoys or use some netting to keep them out. 

Aphids, white fly and other sap sucking insects can also decide that your veggie patch looks like a good place to set up shop. Ultimately, we want to create an ecosystem where our predatory insects like lady birds, parasitic wasps and lacewings can come in to take care of them so plant lots of smelly herbs and flowers in among your crops to encourage them. In the meantime, using the hose to squirt them off can help keep numbers down. 

Citrus Gall Wasp is becoming an increasing problem here in Perth and this is the time of year where you definitely want to get on top of this pest. Prune off any galls and treat them by solarising or burning and putting in the bin. You can use a clay spray to cover your tree such as the Vasili's Garden Citrus Gall Wasp Spray which helps to deter the Gall Wasp and won't harm any other insects or the soil microbes. Just remember to reapply after any rain. 

It is always preferable to choose non-toxic, wildlife-safe options that support a thriving garden ecosystem. If you are keen to know more about integrated pest management using companion planting, why not check out our newest workshop here! 

8. 🍂 Mulch, Mulch, Mulch

Mulch is your garden’s winter blanket. It regulates soil temperature, retains moisture, suppresses weeds, and feeds and creates soil as it breaks down

Choose the right mulch for your plants—straw for veggies, woody mulches for natives and fruit trees. You can also make use of the autumn abundance of fallen leaves. This mulch is particularly good for activating mycorrhizal fungi.  

9. 🪴 Plan for Spring

Use the rainy days to map out your spring garden. Rotate crops, order seeds, sketch new designs, and think about what you’d like to grow, eat, or rewild in the coming season.

✨ Winter is a Gift

It may not feel like much is happening, but these cooler months are a chance to slow down, connect with your space, and support the living systems that make spring possible. From restoring the soil to replanting the verge, every act of care helps regenerate both land and spirit.

Need help getting started? Visit us at Urban Revolution in-store or online—we have seeds, soils and mulches, compost, tools, natural pest control agents, and everything you need to make this winter a beautiful, regenerative one 🌧️💚