What a surprise; it’s raining again. So, I’m at my desk, jotting down a few jobs that I need to do in the garden, in the event that it ever dries out sufficiently to get out there.
Water management
Disconnecting my water butts from the downpipe is top of my list. The butts are already full to the brim, and any heavy downpour tends to overwhelm the outflow pipe. Before we know it, all three overflowing and we have water pouring under our basement door.
If you have pots and containers, make sure any saucers are removed from underneath them, and they are elevated on pot-feet or bricks, to prevent them getting water-logged.
Lawns and leaves
The next task is to rake the leaves off the lawn, before they suffocate the grass. Whilst I’m at it, I’ll give it a bit more elbow grease to see if I can get any moss and thatch up at the same time. The frequency of mowing is starting to reduce, and the grass should be cut on a fairly high setting, leaving the blades long enough to have the best chance of withstanding the winter conditions, and to prevent the colonisation of weeds.
If you have any bald patches (in the lawn, that is…), now is a good time to do re-seed, whilst there is a plentiful supply of rainfall to water it in, and before the ground temperatures drop any lower.
Trees and shrubs
If you have large, overgrown clumps of older herbaceous perennials with bare centres, uproot, divide and replant them, discarding any older plant material that shows no signs of growth. At the same time, you can be thinking about where you might plant new bulbs, bearing in mind that these emerge before the herbaceous plants get going, in the spring.
My October RHS magazine usefully reminds me not to tidy up the foliage on my Salvia as this helps protect the newly emerging growth, over winter. For the same reason, leave the Hydrangea macrophylla flower heads until the spring. Do not prune any soft fruit trees, or shrubs that flower early in the year, because they flower on the previous season’s growth.
Now is a good time to plant any new perennial shrubs and trees. Make sure you dig over the planting area thoroughly, and remove all parts of any perennial weeds first; any little parts of root left behind can still regenerate.
If you think your garden is a little devoid of colour at the moment, pick up a tray of autumn flowering cyclamen at your local nursery; these delicate flowers always give me pleasure, at a time when everything else in the garden coming to an end.
Plan and order spring bulbs
This is one of my favourite tasks, and it doesn’t matter if it’s raining; I can do it from the comfort of my sofa. Try and get a spread of species that will give you pleasure from February, right in to May and June; snowdrops, crocuses and miniature irises are the first to show themselves, followed by daffodils and hyacinths, with tulips and alliums coming along later.
I suspect my garden isn’t sunny enough for alliums, but I am going to give them a go because they look so fabulous, if and when they do bloom. When choosing which bulb species to go for, I also try and pay attention to their value for pollinators; crocuses in particular are really important for those early bumble bees.
