Peter’s Gardening Tips for October

‘Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness’ – J.Keats 

Autumn what a glorious season!  Make the most of this extraordinary dry autumn to get ahead of ground preparation on the allotment, garden, lawns, cleaning patios, decking, fence painting, greenhouse cleaning, weeding, collecting leaves, spreading compost, planting bulbs, digging, re-planting pots and containers for autumn/winter colour….

Lawns:

It’s time to scarify and aerate, remove dead grass and thatch.  Scratch out the dead grass with a spring tine rake or hire a scarifier for larger lawns.  

Cut the grass fairly short before scarifying on a dry day.  There will be huge amounts of dead grass, thatch and moss produced and your lawn will look a mess afterwards, but come spring it will look lush providing you have shown it some TLC. 

I suggest using Vitax Green Up Granular Autumn Lawn Feed or Vitax Green Up Lawn Tonic to give the lawn an added boost and provide essential nutrients to help it flourish.

Grass seed sowing:

Perfect after scarifying on bare patches.  Cover seed with lawn turf dressing, water in and keep moist – watering every other day.  Don’t let the surface of the soil dry out.  Seed will germinate in 5-10 days as long as the ground temperature is above 5c.

Compost bins:

Make room in the compost bins for all the leaves to come!  Remember to use 50% grass/green material to 50% carbon rich matter (leaves, shredded branches, cardboard, paper, straw, bracken).  Mix thoroughly, keep moist and add Vitax Compost Maker to accelerate the process.

Vegetable beds:

Clear vegetable beds of courgette/squash, weeds, dead or frosted plants.  Remove tops of runner beans, but leave the roots in the ground – nitrogen fixing nodules attached to the roots.  Dig over roughly and leave for frost to break up.  Buy garlic and autumn shallots/onions for planting now.

Hedges:

Cut hedges with clean, sharp machinery.  Conifers need cutting back this month.  If hedges are looking stressed after this dry summer don’t forget to feed.  Hedges always get forgotten!  You can use Vitax Growmore or Fish, Blood & Bone.  For box hedging you can use Vitax Buxus Feed.

Spring Bulbs:

Spring bulbs are on sale now – Crocus, Daffodils, Tulips, Alliums, Hyacinth, Muscari…… Empty summer bedding pots and planters and replace the compost with fresh if you find Vine Weevil grubs!  

Plant bulbs under any autumn bedding plants of Primrose, Polyanthus, Pansies, Violas, Dianthus, Winter Heathers, Forget me nots etc, to give you extra colour in the spring.

Cleaning:

Pressure wash patios and decking, and treat with Vitax Patio & Path Cleaner.

Cuttings:

Now is the time to take cuttings of tender plants such as fuchsias, pelargoniums and salvias.  Mix in Vermiculite with your compost 50/50 for pricking out and potting on. Do not over water.

Greenhouse:

Empty the greenhouse before you bring in your tender plants.  Then you can use Vitax Greenhouse Fumigator to kill insects harbouring in nooks and crannies, ideal to use a Vitax Greenhouse Disinfectant too, for washing down glass and benching.

‘Successes & Failures’:

My helpful tip to end this is to make a list of your ‘Successes & Failures’ in the garden, veg patch or allotment before you forget for next season!

If you’re looking for inspiration over the autumn, I recently visited the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens in Hampshire with the Garden Media Guild, walking around with garden manager, David Jewell and Roy Lancaster. 

What a fabulous treat! 180 acres of arboretum with 600 Champion Trees! The autumn colours are to die for! Visit any garden open near you and experience the stunning colours this autumn! It’s going to be Spectacular!

Happy Gardening

Peter 

About Peter Mills:

Peter has over 35 years’ experience in horticulture working in garden centres before becoming a radio gardening presenter with BBC Radio Southern Counties. Working as a freelance consultant, Peter works with the RHS as an external advisor as well as trouble-shooting many gardening-related problems for a range of clients. A regular blogger for silversurfers.com, Peter provides ‘Top Ten Tips’ each month for VGW readers.