How’s your autumn gardening?

[BarrelOfOtters]

Had covid so been wfh, sleeping lots and doing some very gentle pottering in the garden.

got the alliums in, tulips in pots, daffodil’s in….lots of crocus put in randomly. A few in pots.

the trees I planted 2 years ago (blan canvas garden) are now showing lovely autumn colour. Cherry, amelanchier, Cotinus.

I've been planting alliums and narcissus this week. 😊 I'm hoping to transplant some lavender plants as well, so one border will have a lavender edge and be filled with giant white alliums behind.

I was poorly last autumn/winter so nothing got done and the garden is horribly overgrown. I'm weeding and pruning, and bulb-planting as I go. I've weeded all of the gravel drive which has made a huge difference.

I have a raised veggie plot that is too close to some mature trees, so this winter I want to spread the soil across the lawn with some top dressing, and turn the whole area to lawn.

We've been doing some structural stuff in ours, changing the shape of borders and removing an old greenhouse. We've also been seeding new lawns which isn't going as well as I'd hoped! But, we're ha going in there. I've out some of the pots in the new green house to see if they'll over winter.

I love being out in the garden!

A never ending collection of leaves and disposal of the same. 18 bags so far have been collected and disposed of and only the Ash tree is bald. Another 40+ bags are expected and another 4-5 weeks of this. I used to love Autumn. 🍁

Do you clear all the garden, or just paths and grass?

The problem for us is that the house is located off the road so we have a long drive lined with mature trees in the adjacent school field. Because the drive goes down to the house all the leaves for the trees go on to the drive and blow down to the house instead of towards the street.

they simply don’t rot away if you don’t clear them, they just get compounded into deep dried packs as they get wet, squished together then dry out. You have to clear them every day as they fall.

it’s horrendous every year, I also clear my own paths around the house and the patio but I leave them to rot on the grass. Probably why my lawn is more weeds than grass!

Not the same extent as @Sestriere but we have a huge mature hornbeam opposite our house. So the leaves coat the paths and drive and I have to clear them or it gets slippy and dangerous. I leave the ones on the flower beds and turn the ones I collect (about 10 compost bags and it's a small garden) into leafmould.

I'm putting some bulbs in pots in the greenhouse to pop up a bit earlier. It's only 6x8 though so I'm running out of space.

Love the idea of lavender and white allium.

I've planted 3 huge gladiator alliums in the back garden as a focal point and some allium silver spring in the front garden as the bees loved them last year. And will put some purple allium in the front as well as I'm not convinced the ones from last year will come back. It's claggy clay soil and bulbs rot.

Clearing fig leaves! Hate the bloody fig trees in our garden and hubby refuses to prune them to a more manageable height!

they simply don’t rot away if you don’t clear them, they just get compounded into deep dried packs as they get wet, squished together then dry out Strangely, I prefer to clear them when they’re wet. At least they stay where they’re put. But I’m doing it by hand, I don’t have a leaf blower. I just do paths and grass. I try to do each area twice over the season but don’t always manage.

@Mumrey do you ge5 figs though? I’m NW and have a fig in a pot. Had ripe figs once in 10 years.

I mow up the leaves and put them all in a builders bag, to make leaf mould which when done, makes the basis of my seed and potting compost. It saves me loads of money - i moved here this time last year and am already using the leafmould made from the leaves I collected from the ground the week we moved in.

This week I've been removing turf and making new beds, and mainly filling them with split up and dug up plants from when we got here plus herbs along the front.

Can I join in?

I had a lovely day yesterday tidying up leaves - I've only a small garden but I still collect enough to fill a large mesh delivery box which tucks away under a bench and creates lovely leaf mould.

Then I moved around and dug up various things - a few tiarella and something I can't remember (it's related to heuchera but with plain green leaves and a simple flower spike I think in pale yellow/cream).

Dug up 100s of a mystery weed that looks like parsley but wasn't.

I planted a tree fern a few weeks ago so moved some ferns that had been in pots to there. Am still pondering two things I'd like to sort out this side of Xmas - improving a raised bed at the end of the garden (it is falling to bits so I need a new structure) and planting a new tree. It can't be too big - 4-5 m tops - but I can't decide. I've got a lovely Amerlanchier so another one would be an option, or a crab apple but I don't like the look of the smaller ones. Need to make a decision about this soon.

Enjoy your weekends!

@BarrelOfOtters tell me about your prunus - what sort did you go for? I want something that looks like a proper tree but is short as I've only got a small garden. A lot of the shorter trees are more shrubby which isn't what I want.

The weather has been too wet and windy for me for the past few weeks to do much.
I’m going to plant tulip bulbs tomorrow

@WobblyLondoner I’ve got a kojo no Mai in a pot as a standard. Showy in autumn and spring. But it is small.

put a snow goose in as well but it’s shrubbier than I’d like. also a Royal burgundy. It’s a bit droopy but the leaves are a lovely red foil all year.

best autum colour is from the acers. Especially ozakazucki.

the amelanchier has been the best tree I’ve planted for blossom and colour.

I've found a neighbour who has been raking up leaves and asked them if I can have them so that will probably fill my builders bag without me collecting any more from my plot...they go back to the UK in a fortnight so we will do it once they are gone and I can leave my robot mower to deal with the ones on our garden.

Things like this make me so happy! Free seed and potting compost that I don't have to drag up to the top of the garden. Result.

I've got loads of iris and crocosmia that haven't fit into my new bed so I'll be sending my OH around the place to plant them all in front of the hedge when he gets back from the UK.

I’ve planted lots of bulbs so far and found another packet in my boot as an extra surprise. My garden seems to be doing better now than in the summer. I’ve got loads of cosmos blooming, new rose buds coming, loads of dahlias. Everything was just dead on august so it is a nice change! I do worry though that some of the plants are just getting a bit confused. I’ve got a lovely camellia that is normally spring flowering that has just come into flower but not really sure it should be.

Hello, hope you don't mind if I join. Newbie gardener here who has just had my garden clearing. Have planted lupins and cornflower and about to plant tulip bulbs 🌷

I planted lots of daffodil bulbs yesterday. I adore Spring and am on a mission to plant lots of bulbs for an explosion of colour after Winter

Ooh I've been putting the dead leaves into the green waste bin - but should I be saving some for my compost bin? I'll do that.

My garden is looking very confused - stuff still in flower, and lots of new buds appearing. I worry what will happen when the frosts come.

@BarrelOfOtters Yes, we do get figs (live in London). In my experience, the tree grew to about 10ft before we got a decent crop.

@Sharming you could pack the leaves in a black plastic bag with some holes in the bottom, or old compost bag with some holes, fold over the top loosely and leave somewhere out of the way (I put under the garage eaves) then in about a year you’ll have crumbly lovely leaf mould. It’s great as a soil improver or to mix with compost to make seed compost.

some leaves take longer than others to rot down. If you just put a lot in the compost it can take a while to rot down. I put a few in if I’m just tidying up,

I would lik3 it to stop raining so I can get the rest of my bulbs in….bu5 doesn’t look like it will for about 2 weeks.

Agree with this. But even better than a bin bag with holes is something more open to the air. For those with big garden the recommendation seems to be mesh cages - what works best for me in my titchy one is a large plastic mesh delivery tray (I found it but think it's one of those ones they use in supermarket deliveries) that I fill with leaves from the garden, give a good water every now and then, and tuck away (in my case under a bench). Can take two years if you don't keep an eye on it but if you do it should be lovely leaf mould in a year. It's lovely stuff, you can buy it - and it's free!!

Planted about 200 daffs (lots of different ones), crocus’ (which have started to shoot up! Stop!!! Too soon!!), grape hyacinths, iris’ and some of my tulips. Still got 100 tulip bulbs to go in 🪴🪴. That’s this weeks job.

I’ve a large Ash tree currently making me feel like Groundhog Day 🧹🧹🧹

Argh - key typo in my earlier post - It's lovely stuff, you CAN'T buy it - and it's free!!

Enjoy the bulb planting. I've not started thinking about that, partly because squirrels did a good job of decapitating mine last year 🥲