Ever shortening days, wet windy weather, and trees shedding leaves in drifts all take their toll on the November garden. Good gardening days are rare this month, which is all the more reason for taking full advantage when they occur – there’s always something to see and do in the garden! Plant tulips this month as the temperature is cool … Read More
Tips for planning your spring bulbs
A good way to enjoy spring bulbs in a garden, whatever the size, is to plant up a few containers with different varieties of bulbs this autumn. By growing bulbs in pots, you can provide temporary colour where they can easily be substituted when they are past their best. I like to grow spring bulbs in a container with a … Read More
Tips for Enjoying the Garden in September
September days are to be savoured. I find the richness of colour combined with the more slanting sunlight creates the best photographic opportunity in a mature garden. If you’ve managed to keep up with the deadheading, all the tender annual plants will still be filling your garden with bright, strong colour. Long, warm days are coming to an end for … Read More
September Garden Maintenance Tips
Finish pruning evergreen hedges or topiary, such as yew and box, this month. This will give material for semi-ripe cuttings, if you want to increase your stock. Strip off all the leaves and side shoots so that only about 5cm of foliage remains and plant the stem into a container of gritty compost around the edge of a plant pot. … Read More
September is a Great Time to Plant Bulbs
A well-designed garden always has lots of bulbs involved. There are hardly any areas of a garden that bulbs can’t be planted. You can plant bulbs between shrubs or herbaceous plants, in rock gardens or in the lawn. In planning a garden, bulbs are a very useful addition to a planting scheme and even if you don’t have a garden … Read More
September Jobs for the Garden
Roses Prune climbing roses when the flowers start to fade. If they are still growing strong, with lots of flowers, wait until next month. Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between a climbing rose and a rambling rose. Usually ramblers are the roses that flower only once, normally in June, whereas climbers repeat flower almost all summer. It’s relatively straightforward to … Read More
October is the Perfect Time to Plant Bulbs
Now is the perfect time to plant bulbs in your garden, before the ground becomes too wet or cold. Don’t buy bulbs that are squashy. They should be hard, like an onion. I aim to buy bulbs that will give a succession of colour from the first snowdrops to the last alliums in May. Spring-flowering bulbs can be planted in … Read More
More November Gardening Jobs
Plant tulips this month as the temperature is cool enough to discourage fungal diseases. Check for blue mould on your bulbs and do not plant them if you discover it. They do require good drainage so you can mix your soil with gravel if your soil is heavy clay. The end that tapers is the top of the bulb and … Read More
More tasks for your garden in September
Move trees and shrubs now … … while the soil is relatively warm. If a plant has got to be moved, dig around, as far from the base as you can and as deep as possible, to take up a large area of the root. If it’s a very big shrub you may have to enlist the help of a … Read More
October Garden Maintenance Tips
Autumn’s fallen leaves are precious and shouldn’t be wasted in a garden. Rake them up to make leaf mold to be used next autumn as a mulch and soil improver. If they aren’t too wet, use the mower to break them up, especially if you have a large garden. The leaves decompose faster if broken up and kept damp. Make … Read More