October – What To Do In Your Garden This Month

The summer has well and truly passed, and the autumn planting season is underway. Your local Cherry Lane garden centre is well stocked with shrubs that provide both autumn leaf colour, evergreen winter interest and yet more for blossoming in the spring. Bedding plants such as Pansies, Violas, Cyclamen as well as spring flowering bulbs are also available and can be planted now for colour through the winter. October really is the month to ‘dig in’! Scarify and aerate your lawn. Using a metal lawn rake, apply pressure to the lawn whilst raking to remove the ‘thatch’ – layers of moss and debris that collect around the grass. Use an aerator tool to punch regular holes in your lawn, and brush in some Lawn and turf topdressing. Finally, apply an autumn lawn food such as Evergreen Autumn Lawn Care. Plant Cyclamen. Bedding Cyclamen are possibly the most vibrant plants you can use on your patio at this time of year. Bright, swept-back flowers of pink, red, purple, crimson, salmon and white are held above the foliage of marbled dark green. Great in hanging baskets, window boxes and pots, dead-head regularly and water at the base for best results. Underplant with spring bulbs, and these will take over the show next year. Clean out the greenhouse. Harvest any ripe tomatoes, and cut off trusses of remaining green ones, placing them on kitchen roll on a sunny windowsill to ripen. Remove and discard the tomato plants and grow bags. Treat greenhouse staging, capillary matting and any tools with a disinfectant such as Black Outdoor Fluid to kill diseases. Thoroughly sweep the floor of any debris, and finally, clean the glass if necessary.

Plant Shrubs and Trees. October is an ideal time to introduce new hardy plants into the garden, as soil retains the warmth of summer, and along with the higher moisture content that autumn brings, provides the ideal environment for establishment. Your autumn established shrubs will also get a head start next year, leading to a better show of flower and foliage. There are lots of different shrubs to choose from, and it’s a good idea to intermingle evergreen and deciduous (non-evergreen) shrubs together, as the latter provide floral interest, whereas the majority of evergreens are grown for their foliage. A good exception to this rule are ericaceous shrubs, such as Azaleas, Pieris and Rhododendrons. These are all the rage in spring, when their exotic blooms and attractive young foliage grace our gardens. Most types, especially the dwarf and Yakushimanum Rhododendrons, make good subjects for patio containers, especially if your soil is not acidic (don’t forget your ericaceous compost!).

Plant Autumn Flowering Heathers. Our Heathers are full of flower at the moment, in shades of pink, red, white and lilac, and look good amongst conifers, in rock gardens, troughs and in containers of winter bedding. Autumn heathers are lime hating, so make sure you plant them in Ericaceous compost.