Our Autumn Gardening Tips
Summer is over folks!
Well, sadly it’s time to start shutting the garden down after another years growth and colour. With the days drawing in and the weather starting to decline quite rapidly, it’s time to get your garden ready for winter.
It’s not all doom and gloom though, because over the next month or so we will see the most amazing display of foliage colour – not just in our own gardens but all around us. Next time you are out for a drive take a good look around you; this is the most amazing time of year. Leaves are turning red, orange, bronze, brown and yellow in their last defiant stand of the year.
However, it won’t take long before all these beautiful shades of colour are laying in a rotting pile in your garden. It’s time to venture out and cut back, rake up and prepare for winter!
Things to do in the garden during Autumn
- Rake up and collect any leaves (especially on your grass)
- Cut back any herbaceous perennials
- Trim any hedges or shaped shrubs
- Cut back climbers (i.e. jasmines, honeysuckles, climbing roses) so they don’t hold to much weight through winter
- Prune back shrubs that may suffer from wind rock (excessive top growth i.e. buddleia, roses etc)
- Time to pack away the BBQ, the umbrella, tables and chairs – or make sure they are covered up
- After the leaves have come down its worth checking the guttering and removing any debris (this will stop overflow and possible damp problems)
- It’s time to wrap up any tender plants i.e. banana trees, tree ferns or anything else that doesn’t like the cold (I use artificial grass – not only does do the trick it looks good too)!
- It’s time to clear out the baskets and pots to plant up some winter pansies, cyclamen or ivy to keep the garden colourful through the colder months
- Plant some spring bulbs; why not try something different this year? There are hundreds of varieties of daffodils and tulips, my favourites are black knight tulips. My tip is to choose one variety and plant a lot of them in certain areas, rather than one here, one there!
Lawn Care
This isn’t something I have to do as I have artificial grass; I would like to point out that I achieved 98% in my City and Guilds Lawn care exam though! Looking after grass is a full time job and from experience 99 % of the population do not have any idea what needs to be done to have a nice, natural lawn.
Autumn, however, is a busy season for lawn care. Here are a few tips of what should be done in October/November before it gets too wet.
- Scarify with a bouncy rake to remove any debris, thatch or moss
- Aerate with tines removed (not with a spiking machine in photo below)
- Top dressed to fill tines
- Autumn moss killer
- Autumn feed (low in nitrates, high in phosphates)
I hope I have given you some ideas and help as to what you need to be doing in your garden at the moment. Please don’t forget, the more effort you put in now, the better your garden will look next year!
