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There’s a chill in the air but the transition from late summer into autumn has been very gentle, thanks to the unusually warm weather this year.

After six months of balmy weather, it’s easy to be lulled into a false sense of security and imagine winter will never come.

The grass is still growing and I can still pick mini bouquets of roses, dahlias and hardy geraniums from the garden.

But with November around the corner, it’s time to anticipate frosts, storms and heavy rain.

So it’s with some excitement we can begin to tackle the jobs which we may all need to do to get our gardens winter-ready.

Some projects are obvious. There’s a lot of debris around – it is windy. Leaves and old brittle branches are coming down from trees. Clearing them into a composting area is satisfying. What the garden sheds will come to be new feed for its plants in time.

Conditions across the country can vary from extreme lows in the North to almost frost-free coastal zones in the South, so this will inform you whether you need to lift, mulch or wrap tender plants.

If you’ve already had your RAKE IT IN Leaves left on grass will stop light and weaken the plant first frost, that