Gardening: 20 Autumn jobs to do
Think of autumn less as the end of the gardening year and more as the start of the next one, says Adrienne Wild
1 Dig over vegetable beds and flower borders, adding bulky, organic matter to light, free-draining soil to conserve moisture and retain nutrients that are easily lost to leaching. Digging will also expose soil pests and weed seed for birds to feast on.
2 If your lawn looks slightly worse for wear, this is the perfect time to revitalise it. Remove old grass clippings and moss using a spring-tined rake and add it to the compost heap. If you have large amounts of moss then you may want to use a moss
killer first.
3 Repair any worn-out or dead areas of the lawn. To renew bare patches, try sprinkling some grass seeds on a tray of moist potting compost to germinate. When ready, lay the piece of homegrown turf onto the raked bald patch. Keep it well watered
for the first few weeks.
4 In lawn areas that get a lot of wear, improve drainage and aeration by making deep holes with the prongs of a garden fork every 10cm across the entire area. Then brush in a sandy top dressing, followed by an application of autumn lawn feed.
5 Keep container plants in tip-top condition by removing yellowing or dead leaves and faded flowers. Trim back straggly growth, and mulch the top of the pot with gravel to discourage slugs and snails. Use pot feet too, as they improve drainage and prevent soil rings
marking your paving.
6 Remove lower branches on trees that are causing obstruction, using a pruning saw. Do not try to cut any branch that you can’t reach from the ground – in this case, call in the experts. Avoid pruning ornamental cherries and plums, though, because the cuts will be open to disease. Prune these trees in summer instead.
7 Dig up and move poorly placed shrubs, and divide overcrowded perennials while the soil is still warm. Cut back faded perennials to 5cm above ground level, but don’t be too tidy – some perennials have seed heads that look wonderful covered in autumn dew.
8 Install a water butt to collect rainwater from the guttering fixed to garden buildings, as well as your house. To filter out debris, attach an old popsock over the end of the downpipe and secure it with a rubber band. Add Hozelock Water Butt Treatment to keep the water safe and smelling sweet.
9 Clean all the glass, frames and benches in your greenhouse to prevent pests and diseases from overwintering, then fix bubble wrap inside the glass for insulation. Clean pots, too, and check plants for diseases and pests before putting them back inside.
10 Buy and plant spring bulbs as soon as possible for spectacular borders. Plant bulbs at least 5cm apart in bold groups in a flowerbed or lawn, with the pointed end on top. Bulbs don’t like getting wet bottoms, so put a layer of grit in the bottom of each hole.
11 Spread a fine net across your pond and pin it down with bricks. This will catch falling leaves, which can clog pumps and turn the water foul. The leaves can be put straight in the compost bin.
12 Take down bird boxes and empty them. Old nesting material, unfertilised eggs and other debris may carry diseases, so wash out the boxes with hot water and a dash of Biological Cleaner (birdfood.co.uk) before putting them back. Clean out birdbaths and feeders, and refill them regularly.
13 Protect the crowns of frost-sensitive perennials such as penstemons with deep bark mulch. Take a few cuttings as an insurance policy. Select non-flowering shoots and cut the stem below a pair of leaves, where it’s not too woody, so each cutting is about 7cm long. Root them in a cold frame.
14 Protect alpine plants against winter wet, especially vulnerable ones that have grey woolly foliage, by covering them with an openended cloche. You can also safeguard them with panes of rigid clear plastic supported by a column of bricks on either side of the plant.
15 Buy bare-root roses, which are cheaper than container-grown ones. Order them direct from specialist nurseries and they will be dug up to order from nursery fields, meaning many more varieties are available. Unwrap on arrival and plant in fertile soil, with Rootgrow added, in a sunny spot.
16 Autumn is an ideal time to clear out last year’s compost bin and use it around the garden, making room in the bin for this season’s garden waste. If your compost isn’t quite ready, add an accelerator such as nitrogen fertiliser (sulphate of ammonia).
17 Hedges are not only one of the cheapest ways to create a boundary, they’re also wildlife friendly and make a great backdrop for borders. Privet is one of the toughest hedging plants as it copes well with pollution. Buy now as bare-root plants and set them in a staggered double row for a thick, bushy hedge.
18 Replace spent summer bedding in pots and borders with autumn-flowering colchicums, pansies, Yoder chrysanthemums, Michaelmas daisies (Aster novi-belgii) and ‘Miracle’ cyclamen. You may also like dyed bud heathers and ornamental cabbages and kales. Use trailing tails of ivy to soften the rim on containers.
19 Invest in a leaf vacuum to make light work of leaves (and litter) on lawns, paths and drives, as well as flowerbeds and borders. Rake up diseaseinfected rose leaves separately and put them in the dustbin, otherwise the disease spores will hibernate in the soil and re-infect the leaves in spring.
20 Sweet peas can be sown outdoors in March, but if you start them off in a cold frame in late September to early November, they’ll produce stronger and earlier-flowering plants. As well as filling vases, they make great partners to runner beans when trained up a wigwam, bringing in bees and other pollinators.