TO DO LIST

Complete autumn planting. If soil remains workable – not too wet, not frozen or bone dry – you can continue planting bareroot and pot-grown trees, shrubs, roses, and fruit trees and bushes through winter. For a quick way to clear fallen leaves from the lawn, choose a dry day, raise the blades of your mower, fit the grass box and mow as usual – it will pick the leaves up for you. This is an ideal time to tidy up your shed: clear out junk, clean, oil and sharpen gardening tools and hang them up.