October Gardening Advice and Tips

October in the Garden: Preparing for the Chill

October marks a clear shift in the garden.  The weather begins to feel distinctly cooler, trees start to shed their beautiful autumn leaves, and those brisk winds pick up.  This is a wonderful time to get ahead and prepare your garden for the cooler months to come.

Speaking of those fallen leaves, don't let them go to waste! Rake them up and create a magnificent leaf mulch.  This simple act provides a brilliant soil conditioner for next year.  It's also officially time to start thinking about frost protection.

Your October Gardening Checklist

Here is a list of tasks and tips to keep your garden thriving this month:

Planting and Sowing

• Bulbs: Plant your spring-flowering bulbs now to ensure a colourful display when winter breaks.
• Garlic: Plant your garlic cloves.  Generally, the bigger the clove, the better the bulb you'll harvest.
• Hellebores: These can be planted any time of year, so grab them from the garden centre if you see a variety you love.
• Wallflowers: Get these planted now.  They are biennials and need time to establish roots for a strong spring bloom.
• Thyme and Cranesbill Geranium can also be planted this month.
• Sow Seeds: Sow seeds for Achilleas, Field Poppy (rake them lightly into the disturbed soil; keep some back for spring sowing), and Lavender.

Harvesting and Pruning

• Apples and Pears: Harvest your fruit! For both, gently twist and lift.  If the fruit is ready, it will easily come away in your hand.  Store pears in a cool, dark place, and bring them onto a windowsill to ripen when you're ready to eat them.
• Buddleia: Cut these back by about a third.  This minimises "root rock" from strong winds.
• Hedges: Give your hedges a final trim for the season.
• Perennials: Cut back dead stems and leaves on your general perennials, leaving just enough foliage to protect the base of the plant from winter weather.  (Tip: You can leave stems if you want to create a shelter for hibernating insects).
• Catmint: Cut back the faded flowers.  (Optional: leave it intact if you want to provide a place for ladybirds to hibernate).
• Penstemons: Cut back the faded foliage by a third for winter tidiness.
• Roses: Give your climbing roses a good prune.
• Wild Flower Meadows: Cut them back and remember to collect the seeds!

Maintenance and Improvement

• Collect Seeds: Start gathering seeds from ripe seed heads.  If the seeds look ready to naturally spread, it's time to clip the head and place it in a paper bag.  The best time for this is on a dry, sunny afternoon.
• Compost: Spread your beautiful homemade compost around garden beds and lightly dig it in to significantly improve your soil's condition.
• Evergreens: Younger evergreen shrubs can be moved now if you need to rearrange your planting scheme.
• Lawns: You can continue to mow, lay new turf, renovate, or create a new lawn.
• Divide Plants: This is an ideal time to divide older clumps of Catmint and Herbaceous Perennials (like Allium, Lupins, etc.) to give them a boost.
• Red Valerian: Propagate established plants by division to revitalise them.  Simply dig up the clump, shake off excess soil, and cut the rootball into segments, making sure each piece has roots and stems.  Replant the segments, removing the woody centre of the original plant.

Winter Protection

• Tender Plants: Move any tender plants into a greenhouse or conservatory for protection.
• Salvias: Apply a mulch around the base of your salvias.  For very cold spells, consider digging them up and potting them to over winter in a warm, sheltered spot.
• Rosemary and tender Thymes: Give young plants extra protection.  You can also layer older thyme plants to create new, young ones.

Taking a little time now will pay dividends when your garden bursts back to life next spring! Is there a particular task on this list you're most looking forward to tackling?