How to garden in October
What to Do and What Not to Do in your garden this month. Plus: a new rose entry in the Rose Diaries, and some exciting Gardening Mind news
A very happy October 1st to you. Here in my garden, the sun has been shining for the last few days and there’s a gorgeous autumnal light which is bathing everything in gold - it actually stopped me in my tracks this morning. The season has changed, and the colours are changing into something softer.
I’m doing the spider dance as I walk down the garden path each morning, waving my arms about to prevent a cobwebby surprise. But the chill seems to be subsiding mid-morning, and I’m making the most of these gorgeous bonus days outside, so don’t write off being in the garden with a nice cup of tea. I’m adding that to my WHAT NOT TO DO list below.
We’ve got the monthly What To Do/ What Not To Do lists.
There’s also some news about an exciting NEW COURSE
I’m FINALLY ordering my tulips - if you missed these articles, you can find my most reliable perennial tulips that will come back year after year here, with a Cheat Sheet for you, here.
You can find the other tulip collections here, here and here.
I met lots of new Gardening Mind subscribers at Sissinghurst this week, asking how to join the Small Garden Design Course. You can find all of it here.
We have a new rose entry in The Rose Diaries - a good partner/substitute for this one.
Autumn has arrived in my garden, but the colours keep on coming. Details below.
You can find the previous Rose Diaries here:
We’ve had a dry week, so I’m going to mow the area of lawn that I keep short. There’ll be more on what I do with autumn leaves next month, but for now I’m clearing a few from the grass as they’ll just go soggy there. Any leaves that fall on the beds, I’ll leave where they fall (for the most part- again, I’ll be explaining why next month).
The climbing roses and some of the shrub roses - like peachy Rosa ‘The Lark Ascending’ above - have rocketed skywards again, so I do need to cut some of their stems back, about a third of the way down their length, and then tie them in before they snap in the wind. If you’re doing this, don’t prune them all the way down; think of it instead as just lightening the load on them to prevent them breaking and also to stop windrock, where the plant roots become unstable because they’ve been disturbed by the main plant being blown about.
I’ll do the same with the buddleia, but cutting the stems down by about a half, and then I’ll cut them back much harder around March next year.
There are some perennials that really have had their day and need to be chopped back, but others are looking good in their structure - eg some of the grasses and the Michaelmas Daisies which are absolutely resplendent this year - so I’m leaving them, partly for me, but mainly for shelter for wildlife.
As mentioned, there’s still time to order bulbs, and predictably there are some great tulip bargains if you hunt around. I’m going to be ordering mine this week. Remember, you absolutely don’t want to be planting your tulips until November at the earliest.
Get up early to listen to the birdsong - there’s still some cheeping and peeping going on.
If you’re happy with a jolly mix of narcissi, you can find some of my recommended daffs here - a lot of them are reduced, so there are definitely bargains to be had: