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!

Maybe it’s not practical to post them when in leaf? The leaves detach very easily..

@MereDintofPandiculation

When you say stop watering cacti - do you cut back watering or literally stop? I have hundreds of houseplants but I've never been successful with cacti and succulents. I'm pretty sure I kill with kindness and overwater - or I go to the other extreme and don't water at all. I think I recall you having some magnificent Christmas cacti - do you do anything special for them? Any advice would be appreciated.

@BigBundleOfFluff It depends on how cool they are. The cacti in the greenhouse I stop completely in September, give the soil time to get bone dry before winter. The Christmas cacti are in the porch - I can’t remember what I do! I may give a tiny dribble once the flower buds have set. But all cacti are adapted to hold water to cope with drought, so too little is better than too much. Basically, water freely in summer or when the temperature is consistently comfortable room temperature, but cut back at lower temperatures, until you’re keeping them bone dry at 5deg or less.

I visited several garden centres yesterday looking for a specific rose that a friend requested for her birthday (no luck, I've ordered it online). They all had lots of cyclamen though, looked lovely. I was sorely tempted.

@lcakethereforeIam oh go on, treat yourself! If nothing else, for the happiness factor.

I managed to find some real beaut's in the week. I could have bought dozens of them, such gorgeous rich colours. I think you're right about the brittleness of their foliage @MereDintofPandiculation

I also bought some heathers, they were lovely too.

i was going to dig up all my dahlia just after the Flower Show but the weather has been so gorgeous for two weeks that they've been flowering prolifically. New blooms have come up that weren't there all summer, completely weird!

The cyclamen I bought last year got nommed by vine weevils. I hadn't realised I had them, so I nematodes them. I don't have room for any at the moment, dahlias still going strong, lots of buds.

Yes, they’re a particular target. First thing to check if a Cyclamen or other primrose family plant is wilty and doesn’t perk up with a drink.

They got my heuchera too 😭

I was unsure about when to dig my dahlias up - they've finished flowering but still have lots of green leaves. Do I have to wait for those to die back?

I wait til the first frost which blackens the leaves, then I cut them right back to about 10 cm and dig them up. I’ve started wrapping the tubers in newspaper in the garage after they’ve dried off and this seems to be a successful way of storing them.

We've got a forecast for frost this weekend.

I plan to dig my dahlia up in early Oct. I've got some masking tape that I will use when I cut the stems down to just one main one, hose off the soil and label them in terms of colour, type and height.

I'm going to copy your masking tape idea @daisychain01 , such a useful tip.

I'm going to try & get lots of bulbs planted later today.

Happy to help @MissMarplesNiece I will post up some photos when I do my dahlia autumn pack away in crates, newspaper insulation, all that jazz

I've ordered a tree called a Flowering Cherry Royal Burgundy. Very excited.

for anyone thinking of planting a tree or doing any tree work, Sept and Oct are great months. The soil is warm, there's plenty of rain normally and trees have time to establish (or cut 'wounds' to heal) before the cold dark winter months, to wake up in Spring refreshed and ready for the year ahead.

i have a tree surgeon joining us in 3 weeks to give some attention to our tall birches that have reached such a height that when the high winds come, they sway around rather violently and we have been worried that there are a couple of them in the group that might 'heave' if we don't give them attention. He's going to take them down 2 metres which is about 20% of their height (that's how tall they are!)

Plus he's going to reshape our flowering cherry that was suffering earlier in the year and check it's health - In fact two years running it defoliated after flowering in May but then recovered and refoliated in July.

and remove an old pear tree that's past its best and plant the new Cherry.

@daisychain01 i have planted violas so far, I prefer them en masse, as I’m not so keen on pansies. I do like polyanthus though not the gaudy colours.
Generally I go for spring bulbs rather than winter bedding.

I find violas are less prone to slug damage compared to pansies. Which is nonsense, considering how closely related they are.

My Cherry tree arrived yesterday so I've left it propped up against the wall, waiting for the tree man to come along to plant it. Nice and tall, still fully foliage (large reddish floppy leaves).

yesterday was a beautiful end to the week weather wise. It was glorious sunshine all day. I have the feeling it was the last day of summer though ....

planted my cyclamen in the stone urns on the patio. They look lovely. The geranium in there were still flowering and looking quite bushy, so I'm going to try to overwinter them and see if they survive. A couple of useful tutorials on YouTube have given me some inspiration.

im thinking of getting the title of this thread changed to Autumn jobs instead of monthly, as the month goes by so quickly!

There’s already an October jobs thread which you could have posted this to!

If you try seasonally, there will be too many jobs once you get-to spring

I'm thinking of trying to overwinter some geraniums (regals). I don't have a greenhouse, my porch is tiny and I don't have room to keep them as houseplants so completely unearthing them, wrapping them in paper and keeping them in the loft with my dahlia tubers would probably be the best option but I think I lack the courage*. So, I think I'm going to cut them right down, put them in smaller plastic pots and find room in the porch. It's unheated but shouldn't freeze and they'll get some daylight.

*Fibrex sent me some plants labelled as what I'd ordered but, when they flowered, were clearly not the right varieties. One is just...yuck! I might try that one in the loft just to see what happens. It'll be no great loss.

Eta

Sorry, damn it new month!

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/gardening/5174194-october-2024-jobs-to-do-this-month

change of plan - new monthly thread, for October jobs. Sorry, this one looked a bit sparse for Sept, but I agree @MereDintofPandiculation by Feb/Mar, it will get very busy