5 Tips for Gardening in Autumn

Here are my top 5 tips for gardening in the Autumn.

Tree Fern Dicksonia Antarctica
Photo taken by Pumpkin Becki at Chelsea Physic Gardens, London

1 Move frost tender plants

Living in the South East of England, I don't worry about lifting Dahlia tubers once the first frost has blackened them in the Autumn, I just prune off the dead top and add a good 8-10cm mulch over the soil. I do take the time to wrap tree ferns up in fleece.

Further up country you're going to want to make space in a frost-free place to keep half hardy and tender perennials, including Banana Ensete, Cannas and Fuchsia.

I would also add Banana Musa to that list, as I've never been able to keep one in the garden over-winter, even really wrapped up well. It's so disappointing to find a dead plant when you peel back the fleece in Spring.

2 Clean paths and greenhouses

Algae growth goes into overdrive in October/November while it's still mild, and mornings are misty. Paths can become treacherous to walk on, so take some time now to scrub or jet-wash paths, decks and steps.

3 Aerate Lawns

Over the summer months our lawns take a real battering. We mow them to within an inch of their lives, they get parched and then drowned, we walk on them, pets do their business on them, and in my case the guinea pigs and chickens spend large chunks of time there too. I have two patches that get particularly compacted and in the winter water sits on the surface for hours after a good downpour. Early in the Autumn the ground is usually too dry to be able to improve drainage or relieve compaction, so once there has been a bit of rain and it's soaked in it's worth going over the lawn with a large garden fork at 10-15cm intervals, inserting it down through the turf into the soil (right up to the point where the tines meet the fork's shoulder if you can) and give it a good firm wiggle back and forth to expand the holes as much as possible without actually lifting the turf. Then you can dress the holes with a free-draining mixture of topsoil and sharp sand (aka top dressing), sweeping any excess in with a beesom broom afterwards.

The grass will also appreciate having fallen leaves raked off regularly with a springtine rake, and this will also scarify (scratch) the dead grass and moss out, making the lawn healthier and less springy.

Ladybirds over-wintering in sweetcorn plants
Photo by Pumpkin Becki

4 Don't be too tidy

Wildlife needs somewhere to live over the winter and spring, so make sure you have safe places for them in your garden. Log piles, bundles of canes and hedgerows are idea for insects and birds. Leave stalks and seedheads on plants over winter, they'll look pretty touched by frost and wildlife will make good use of them too.

For even more luxury why not add bug hotels, frog boxes and hedgehog hides in secluded corners. Dragonfli sell a huge range of habitats and identification guides for wildlife, as will your local garden centre and many other online retailers. Or if you're feeling practical, why not have ago at building your own

Hedgehog hibernating

5 Always check bonfires for hedgehogs!

I can't reiterate this one too much. This innocent looking pile of leaves behind my Hebe is in fact a hedgehog nest. He's set up home to hibernate over winter, and I discovered him while I was mulching the bed under the front window of my house.

I checked he was okay, and piled some extra leaves on top.

And Special Secret Tip Number 6

Take time to enjoy the changing season and all the delights it brings, the blazing colours, delicate frost patterns on windows, wild birds visiting garden feeders, pumpkins ripening, picking apples from the tree, and pouring over seed catalogues with a cheeky hot chocolate, deciding what to grow next year.

Pumpkin Becki xx

Garden Party and Panic Planting

We're having a family get together at the new house next Saturday, and I've been thinking about how things will look to our guests, most of whom have not seen the house in real life before.

I know the front garden doesn't look great, as it's really more of a Spring/Early Summer garden (before the trees have 'leafed-up'), but I thought the back would do me more credit...

Then I looked again, with fresh eyes...Oh dear!

So many garden jobs to do!

We still have half the garden as it was when the builders left, ie rubble and weeds. The fence needs replacing and there is still a pile of used Grow Bags waiting to be emptied into the raised beds. My answer to the weeds and rubble, was to pull a big tarp over the lot of it, the tarp is green, so hopefully it will camoflage the mess (cough cough).

I  knew the pretty side of the garden would cheer me up...oh...'x' has finished flowering and needs cutting back...so does 'y'...and 'z'...the slugs have massacred 'a'...and it looks like 'b' never grew at all. This is not good. The saddest loss is the big tree fern we bought last summer to replace the previous one that died. We've come to the conclusion that it must be something to do with the huge canopy of leylandii that overhang from our neighbours. The rain cannot penetrate it, and it sheds dead needles continuously to form a crispy, copper-coloured blanket over everything. The soil beneath, is just dust.

Urgent remedial action was required, so I went bonkers at the local DIY centre, and bought 2 trolley loads of flowering perrenials that should continue well into Autumn, things like Phlox and Pinks, and I also bought lots of Heuchera 'Palace Purple', which are such good doers, two Clematis to twine through the ivy on the fence, and a Fatsia Japonica to replace the tree fern. We've had one before, and know that it is pretty tough, so hopefully, once it gets it's roots down, it will be okay.

I had to do a surprising amount of clearing to make space for my new treasures, including uprooting and potting-up four or five nice Strawberry runners. The three clumps of Viola 'Rebecca' have had a bit of a haircut, and a slight repositioning. A lovely Heuchera, given to us by my God-Sister last May, had put on enough growth to be split into three decent plants. I love free plants!

The clump of Dahlia 'Dandy' which I grew from seed  a few years ago was looking really sad. I think again it is probably to do with the Leylandii. I decided that I would give the clump a haircut, and then changed my mind and dug it up, with the intention of throwing it away and starting again. However, the clump of tubers was enormous, and beautifully fat and healthy, so I instantly changed my plan, chopped off the top growth and split the clump into three. Hopefully this will reinvigorate the plants, and I'll get better flowers next year...fingers crossed.

After two evenings, working like a Navvie until it was too dark to see, the garden looks much more 'flowery'. The beds have been beefed up with the spent growbags and some manure, and if I keep diligently dead-heading, and watering, all should be well.

The front garden hasn't escaped this drastic action though - ooooh no! The block paved drive had begun to look like a hayfield, and we could literally have run the lawn mower over it. We decided that as this was the first impression our guests would have of the house, we needed to weed. So armed with a knife each and a bucket, we spent the best part of 3 days cutting out the weeds from between the cracks - whose idea was it to use 'rustic' paviours :-/

The effort was well worth it though, as it does look super. We also bought some low willow effect hurdles along the front of the short bed at the end of the drive, in front of the hedge. This means that we've been able to increase the soil level without it washing onto the drive in the first rain, and to put in some more new plants, including: 2 hebes, 3 Cottage Pinks, a dwarf Pink Echinacea and 2 Euonymous. That sounds like a lot of plants, but it looked a bit bare when I laid everything out in position, so I added 2 Heuchera 'Chocolate Ruffles' (split from a plant in another bed, and some 2 year old Hellebore seedlings.

I'm really pleased with what we've achieved, though we were dog-tired by Sunday evening ...now there is just the house itself to worry about!! :D .