Autumn - Gardening Jobs to do this Season (Sep, Oct, Nov)

[daisychain01]

By popular demand ... a thread to share monthly gardening jobs and encourage each other to make and keep our gardens and outdoor spaces (patio, greenhouse, roof garden etc) looking wonderful through the seasons.

I'm a couple of days early this month, as the weekend hopefully gives us time to get out there and also think about the jobs we need to do, as the somewhat mediocre summer slips into the long-shadowed golden days of September.

My Sept to-do's so far, include:

• deadhead the dahlia to encourage and prolong flowering. By the end of next week, I will be out there marking the 6 dahlia flowers to enter into the Garden and Produce Show in our village hall in Saturday.
• deadhead the sweetpea which seem to have gained a new lease of life and are flowering strongly but also creating pea pods that need to be cut off to stop the plant thinking it doesn't need to flower anymore.
• last bit of wood treatment - I've done the fence, log/garden store so only the bin store and the pergola to be done. I try to get them done by Sept each year.
• plant up 2 clematis and 1 honeysuckle. I managed to persuade DH to let me plant them against the stone wall, so they grow up and over next year, which he was resisting because he said it would be a PITA to mow round ... but I've told him it will be worth it!

A few dahlia

Thank you for this thread @daisychain01
Can I ask the name of the red dahlia? It looks beautiful

Is September also a good time to plant tulip bulbs? Or do you wait till abit later?

I am waiting for things to happen-

I have tomatoes on the vine but though it's a decent crop (I've never grown them before ) they're still green, I will cut off the flowers from some of them stems otherwise they'll get overloaded .

I have nasturiums with loads of Cabbage White Butterfly caterpillars on them , we grow them every year but the butterflies have been really late this year

My sweet peas are looking past their best now , I;m dead heading them every day to remove seedpods but I don;t think I;ll get many more flowers

I grew a hop (don;t know why exactly , it's a climber and it grows ) and this year I have hops , which I have no clue what to do with . Let them dry , will the birds eat them?

Buddleia needs cut back a bit , I have it in a big pot to fill a gap so it cannot move but I'll get it a bigger pot next year

WE have a compost bin which has been going about three years so I might be able to use what's at the bottom.

Need to clean the mini greenhouse

Thanks, @daisychain01 You were quick off the mark!

Now nesting season is over I can start thinking about cutting hedges which are really overgrown

Stop watering cacti so they can dry off for the winter.

annual prune of tayberries and boysenberries, cutting out all the fruited canes and tying in new canes,

List what seeds I have in stock so I know what new ones to order.

Buy spring bulbs

Dammit, posted on the wrong thread!

September jobs:
-cut back the buddleias if they ever give up flowering (slightly regretting all the deadheading now)
-keep deadheading roses until the frost stops them
-finish picking blueberries and dismantle the fruit cage.
-cut down raspberry canes as they finish fruiting.
-cut back the curry plants so they're off the path (I left the flowers for the bees but it's getting too obstructive now).

Seed saving.

If you have flowers such as cosmos, marigolds, echinacea, rudbeckia, nasturtiums, sunflowers etc or veg such as peas and beans, you can leave a few of the flower heads/pods on to make seeds and collect them in paper bags or on trays to dry off and provide seeds for next year.

You have to leave them on the plant until the flower heads/pods are brown and dry.

I didn't know you could plant buddleia in a pot! A hint for next year for me. I have already got rid of redundant pea stalks and strawberry plants which I grow in pots, raised beds and baskets. My sweet peas were poor this year. I might need to get rid of them for new ones. I will buy the spring bulbs and get them in pots. I'll have to cover them with something because of squirrels. After the first heavy frost, I'll pull up the crocosmia.

Definitely love a bit of seed gathering this time of year!

I snipped off a stalk of lupin pods yesterday and gave it a shake - a very satisfying rattle told me they were ready to put in my stock of paper bags that I keep from M&S Simply Food and labelled them up. Likewise the digitalis and aquilegia. I have a lovely aquilegia chocolate variety which I find is much more rare than the purples and pinks so I try to keep those seeds in a separate bag.

I laid out some dried marigold heads on the patio this week and they were nicely dried off so I have pulled them apart and bagged them up. Labelled them Yellow / Orange / Multi so I distribute the colours in pots next year.

The burgundy dahlia is 'After Dark'.

Dahlia come in some beautiful dark reds and crimsons - varieties like cactus 'Nuit d'Ete' and pompom 'Gypsy Night' are stunning.

I had my email yesterday that my crocus bulbs will be delivered next week. Exciting! I chose two varieties - the conventional purple, yellow and white mix, and a more unusual mix of orange, and a beautiful white flower with delicate purple stripes.

i will get them in the ground during Sept as we will have rain this week so the soil will be soft and easy to work.

I also did the now infamous act of going into the local garden centre "for a couple of bags of compost" and of course couldn't resist the 3 bags of tulips that had my name on (oh, and the compost!). I'll post the names of the varieties later - they are all dark varieties, which will be stunning in tubs in the Spring.

@70isaLimitNotaTarget good shout re cleaning the greenhouse I'll do it in late Sept - Jeyes fluid and a scrubbing brush on all the surfaces If I leave it past Sept it will never get done, because the weather gets too cold to be out there with the hose pipe and I get caught up doing leaf collection and compost organisation, which takes me weeks to do!

Sowing hardy annuals- cerinthe and ammi visnaga for me, and nigella direct.
I sowed spinach, chervil and kohl rabi last month so pricking out and planting out this month.
Then onto bulb planting!

I cut back brambles and bindweed from the borders.

My MaleCat looked round the garden all Judgey .

Mum you have removed the cover from my hidey spaces

This was the cat who scratched his eye on something in the garden and ended up at the Emergency Vet a few years back .
You'd think wouldn't you he'd be a bit grateful <sigh>

Here are my tulips that I will plant up in pots towards the end of Sept.

I've gone foe beautiful dark Rich colours with some additional light shades to give it some zing.

Tesco is selling 2 boxes for a fiver/ I know, I'm a mug for an offer

You didn't seek his authority @70isaLimitNotaTarget how very dare you

Next door's cat has taken to using the gravel on our seating area as a giant cat litter. It's revolting.

I've bought 4 containers of Get Off! to try and give it the message not welcome here. Grrrr

I know , I feel the wrath , there will be a Horses Head On My Bed for sure .

My cats ( smug alert) use their trays rather than the garden , they are quite timid /antisocial especially him so don't feel comfy going in NDN gardens and will always canter into the house , "perform" and mosey out smugly Yeah you might want to deal with that
But I can hand-on-heart say they don't menace anyone's gardens .

I went to garden centre yesterday and bought my spring bulbs. I'll be planting them during the week.

I bought some "prepared" hyacinth bulbs but am not sure when is the best time to plant them.

When can you move next door to us, @70isaLimitNotaTarget then we can get rid of the current lot and their thug moggie. Horrible creature, I thought cats were clean animals not that one, no shame whatsoever. Slack parenting.

You can put your hyacinth bulbs in a border in Sept/Oct and they'll come up in early Spring @MissMarplesNiece or indoors they will flower by Christmas.

I’m so glad we had heavy rain yesterday, a real thunderstorm 😊, the garden was so dry.
I have dug out my paeonies , they rarely had more than two flowers and were smothering everything. I ordered my bulbs from Farmer Gracy and a big box arrived 👏 so I will get on with planting then. I also have a wooden raised planter to do.
DH moved the lawn just before the deluge so it’s looking reasonably tidy.
I’m still deadheading the roses and sweetpeas, though the latter have slowed down flowering.
After the bulbs are in I will think about whether to get winter flowering bedding plants or not.

I received my box of crocuses. Hoping I'll be able to plant them next weekend. Tomorrow will be a complete washout.

This weekend is looking beautiful, warm and sunny all day today and intermittent sun and cloud tomorrow. Temps back up overnight to over 8C after a couple of very cold nights this week, down to 0C two nights ago 😱I was relieved my dahlia don't seem the worst for wear, in fact they're more colourful now that all through the summer.

I will start planting my batches of crocus on the lawn. I'm going to leave the bags of tulips for now as they go into my oversize pots and the stone urns on the patio which are currently resplendent with summer bedding that I can't bear to dispense with. We're at the turning point of the seasons where summer flowers can often rally well with the warm, mellow weather and a drop of rain. Long may that continue through Sept and Oct!

i had a burst of energy yesterday and pruned back my choisia, flowering currant and weigela which have all 'had their chips' and looking very out of shape and bedraggled. The roses also need attention but I will wait another week or so while they're still in flower but coming to the end of their season.

Greenhouse definitely needs a big clear out but I'm not yet in the mood while the tomatoes are showing some ripening going on. Obviously too late now for any new fruits to form.

@CoffeandTiaMaria what winter flowering plants do you have in mind?

I saw a lovely display of hanging baskets yesterday walking round our village. They had some purple winter flowering pansy, mini evergreen foliage, heather and ivy draping down. Lovely. I don't do winter baskets any more because by end of Oct they can get bashed around with high winds rain and frost. I prefer to have a few troughs of winter flowering heather and cyclamen, which I tuck up against the wall for added protection from the elements and they normally do nicely.

I've got Cyclamen to plant in a couple of hanging baskets. I'm hoping they'll brighten up the garden when I look out on a grey wintery day. I've had a bad chest infection this last week so haven't got round to planting them out yet.

On several websites I use for seasonable plants they're saying cyclamen are out of season, which I think sounds wrong. They're only just coming into season! I'll have to try a few garden centres to see if they have any that are flowering in pots.

get well soon @MissMarplesNiece

I find the best thing to keep cats off the flower beds is holly leaves. I looks quite pretty as a mulch and does the job well. Gravel is more problematic but orange peel makes cats gag, so maybe save the skins and chop finely then scatter in the gravel?