Monty’s 10 key tasks for October
1 Collect leaves for leafmould
One of the effects of climate change is that foliage seems to cling to the trees longer and change colour more slowly, so that the major leaf fall is in November. But a storm or hard frost can send the leaves streaming to the ground this month and while they can look lovely on a crisp, clear day, as soon as they get wet they become a sodden carapace over the borders and grass, and must be gathered up.
I regard October’s fallen leaves as a precious harvest, and every one is carefully raked and kept to make leafmould, which we use as an important element in our potting compost and as a mulch for woodland plants. If they are not too wet, we try to mow over as many as possible, often placing them on a brick path to do so, because they decompose much faster if chopped up and then kept damp.
Leaves are largely broken down by fungi and the process is slow. There is no need to turn it but simply store the leaves in a wire-sided bay or in bin bags and by next October they will have become lovely, rich leafmould.
2 Make compost
I do love compost. Not so much the stuff itself – although I am as partial to a crumbly, sweet-smelling barrow-load as the next gardener – but the idea of it. It’s the perfect embodiment of what any good gardener is trying to do. We start with heaps of waste
– by definition, the least valuable thing we have – which then metamorphoses into the single most useful thing in any garden.
It’s a deeply satisfying alchemy.
The idea is to make it a mixture of brown and green material – in other words, carbon-rich waste, such as shredded twigs and dry herbaceous growth at the end of summer, and stuff that is higher in nitrogen, like grass clippings and lettuce leaves. Material with a higher proportion of carbon to nitrogen, such as dry leaves (about 50:1) or sawdust (400:1), can be considered ‘brown’, while anything with a lower proportion of carbon, such as grass clippings and veg peelings (15:1), is ‘green’.
It’s not an exact science, but the ideal ratio of carbon to nitrogen is 25:1, and an imbalance in this is the main reason compost heaps fail.
So judge carefully the levels of ‘browns’ and ‘greens’, putting the emphasis on ‘browns’.
See our Growing Greener feature on p74 for more information.
3 Get planting…
This is the time to be planning for next summer, planting, moving and ordering plants. The more that you can get done between now and Christmas to prepare the garden for spring, the better it will be for you and the garden.
In pots: cyclamen. October is the month to plant cyclamen corms. They grow very well in pots, flowering for months. They like a free-draining compost, so I add plenty of vermiculite or grit to a peat-free potting mix. You can also plant hardy cyclamen corms outside, just below the soil surface, preferably in light soil in the shade of shrubs and deciduous trees. Cyclamen tolerate winter shade and any amount of summer drought, although they need some winter moisture to establish healthy leaves.
In borders: biennials. You can also plant up or move biennials, such as forget-me-nots, wallflowers, onopordums (Scotch thistle), foxgloves and verbascums. Don’t forget to dig up healthy Verbena bonariensis – cut back and pot up to use to take cuttings next spring; and take cuttings also of penstemons and salvias.
4 Create structure
Autumn is the perfect time to plant or move deciduous trees and shrubs, even those in leaf, as they will have finished growing and the soil is still warm so the roots will grow immediately. Soak them when you do so and repeat this weekly until the ground is really wet or the leaves have fallen. Move evergreens before deciduous plants as they need maximum root growth before winter kicks in.
To prepare the plant for the move, soak the soil around it the day before. To move the shrub, first prepare the new hole. Then loosen the soil around the plant with a garden fork, inserting it at least 30cm from the main stem. Lift the rootball with as much soil clinging to the roots as possible.
Lower it into the new hole, ensuring it is at the same depth as it was before. Firm the soil down and water well.
5 Encourage more flowers
Bananas, cannas, dahlias, agapanthus, cosmos, gladioli, sunflowers, tithonias and zinnias all really come into their own as July opens out into August. If given sufficient water and nutrition all will continue to flower profusely until the weather turns cold – which can be as late as early November.
Dahlias flower and grow in response to warmth rather than light levels so they will continue flowering until the first frosts occur if you deadhead them regularly. Cut the fading flowers right back to the next pair of leaves rather than just snipping off the flowerheads. Deadheading this way removes the ugly spikes of spent flower stalks as well as promoting new flower buds.
6 Get creative with winter
You have to challenge winter weather to a fight and get back up with a dismissive laugh every time it knocks you down. There are a number of weapons in this battle. The most accessible to any gardener anywhere is to plant up lots of pots specifically to be at their best in these dreary months. There are many tried-and-tested permutations, but I always like to include spring bulbs, some ‘fringe planting’ and a centrepiece that, because of the season, is often a woody shrub of some sort. A very successful exception to that woody rule has been ferns.
I have fallen in love with ferns of all kinds, but the male fern (Dryopteris filix-mas) is perhaps the most completely satisfying, given its ability to grow almost anywhere other than in burning-bright sunlight. It is terrific as the centrepiece for a large pot, looking really good all winter until about March, when it’s best to cut the old fronds right back and let new ones emerge freely. It takes a few years to develop into its full size but, once it does, a large plant can hold its own anywhere.
I usually underplant the male fern with ivy – four or five plants trailing down the sides of the pot that will become a green curtain – and poke through the ivy strands either pink or white Cyclamen coum (but never both together, otherwise the whole thing ends up looking like a strawberry Mivvi ice lolly). Beneath all that, planted a good 20cm down on a base of very gritty compost, are ‘Tête-à-tête’ daffodil bulbs (because bigger varieties would look out of place among all this relatively droopy greenery) and the tulip ‘Spring Green’ to bring a final burst of freshness at the end of the pot’s season.
I have also used the same combination of understorey, but replaced the centrepiece fern with, variously, Mahonia × media ‘Winter Sun’, witch hazel (Hamamelis × intermedia ‘Pallida’) and red-stemmed Siberian dogwood (Cornus alba ‘Sibirica’). These all gave us a taller and more structural display than the fern, which works especially well in January and February, when the flowers of the mahonia and witch hazel and the bark of the dogwood are at their most intense.
7 Collect and store apples
We start picking the earliest varieties of eating apples such as ‘Tydeman’s Early Worcester’ and ‘Worcester Pearmain’ from the orchard at Longmeadow in September but the bulk of the fruit is ready throughout October.
The best way to check and see if an apple is ready to pick is by gently twisting and lifting it. If it is ripe, it will come away in your hand.
Treat each apple as though it is precious – which, of course, it is – handling it as carefully as possible. Store the fruits in a cool, dark place that is preferably not too dry. A cellar or shed is ideal. Place them on a rack so the air can flow around them, but be sure that no two fruits are touching, both to improve ventilation and to prevent the spread of any rot. Check the apples regularly and remove any that are discoloured.
Windfalls – those that have dropped naturally from the tree, either through ripeness or being blown off – are perfectly edible but should never be stored for more than a week or so. Not only do they not last, but the bruising will result in rot, which spreads to neighbouring fruit. We eat up our windfalls first and even when they’re badly damaged, they are perfectly good for juicing. Any that are left on the ground – and sometimes it seems to be hundreds – are eaten by the birds before winter is out.
8 Grow garlic
Elephant garlic is good to eat, very easy to grow and extremely healthy. We should all grow it. As with all garlic, it should be planted between autumn and mid-winter in full sun in soil that is rich, free-draining and has a pH higher than 6.
Bury the cloves at least twice their own depth, which, in practice, means dibbing a hole 15cm deep. They should be spaced at least 20cm apart, although 30cm is better if you have the space, in rows 30-60cm apart.
I then spread a generous layer of homemade compost over the top of the whole planted area. This feeds the soil, mulches the weeds and effectively buries the cloves deeper – which is never a bad thing.
Keep them weed-free and well watered, especially in spring as the foliage is growing. When you sense that the garlic is full grown (I realise that ‘sensing when full grown’ could be cause for anxious confusion but, put simply, it means when the foliage starts to yellow and keel over, some time around the beginning of July), stop watering for at least two weeks.
9 Sowing sweet peas
Sweet peas are a gorgeous garden flower, but I think they do their best service in a vase once they have been cut and brought indoors. In fact, I’d argue that they’re the very best cut flower of all, not just for their silky beauty, but also because they fill a room with their utterly seductive fragrance.
The advantages of sowing in autumn are that the plants are strong and bushy by the time they go outside, so grow away quickly. This gives you earlier flowers and allows the plants to peak at a time of year – early summer – that suits them best, as sweet peas hate very hot, dry weather.
10 Getting ahead
Despite the way that light, colour, human and plant energy are all on the wane, it is important to do as much as possible in October to set up the year ahead. The first day of October is the horticultural New Year’s Day. It is time to take stock and plan ahead. Because if this is the end of one gardening year, it is also simultaneously the beginning of a new one. As one door closes, another – rather smaller and more distant – opens. It is not so much a time to put the garden to bed but to gently prepare it for action.