Lessons learned from a Highland fling! Gardening tips for October

You may have heard that all three Growbags were in the Scottish Highlands for a few days last week – evading Storm Amy by a whisper before she started wreaking her havoc.

In between lovely walks, garden visits and long periods of tea and laughter, we managed to get some jobs done such as late dead-heading, planting bulbs and clearing up leaves…

Marvellous mulch

Along with all the cakes we ate last week, Laura and I had to consume large amounts of Humble Pie after all our mocking of Caroline’s gardening prowess over the years. Her garden was looking really beautiful in the early autumn light (look at the feature pic!) with plants chosen to suit her soil and blend well with their border-neighbours (we must have taught her well!) 

Something I particularly noticed was how much her chosen mulch of wood chippings set off the planting unobtrusively but effectively.  Mulches can help a lot with invasive weeds such as the endemic ground elder that Caroline has to deal with, too. Seeing it look so good in her garden reminded me to say that autumn can be a great time to add a protective organic layer over all your borders. 

While spring mulches are mostly about weed suppression and sealing moisture in ready for the summer ahead, an autumn mulch is a great way to give all the plant roots a cosy ‘rug’ against harsh winter weather, and if they are biodegradable (such as rotted manure or compost), they will also improve the soil as the worms take them downwards.  If you have been cutting back lots of your perennials now their big show is over, then you’ll find that you’ve got lots more room to spread your mulch over the ground. 

Just a word about wood chippings if that is what you’re intending to use – do let them rot down for at least six months or so (especially holly or fir clippings) before spreading them on the garden soil.  This prevents them from stealing nitrogen from the soil which is an essential element for growth, and speeds up the transference of organic matter.

Winter colour

Caroline has a great many perennials and shrubs in her garden that are still full of interest and colour. But if you have lots of annual summer bedding plants like marigolds, busy Lizzies, petunias, lobelias etc. instead, I expect you are already beginning to clear your beds and pots of these – they can go on the compost heap.  It’s worth potting up pelargoniums, small fuchsias etc. because they are actually tender perennials and can last the winter in a frost-free place (cold greenhouse, cool windowsill…..)

So sad to lose all that colour!  But don’t sit looking at those blank spaces until spring.  I heartily recommend that you go out and get some lovely autumn-colour plants like heucheras, heucherellas, carex, asters, chrysanthemums or heathers, which will give some long-lasting brightness and interest. 

Pansies, violas, autumn-flowering cyclamen and polyanthus are inexpensive and will also put a smile on your face right through to early spring. The cyclamen that I planted in a sheltered pot in late autumn last year were still flowering the next May! Position them if you can in a place where you are likely to see them even when terrible weather is keeping you indoors all day.  Or maybe in a pot right by your front door. I dare you – treat yourself and you’ll be very glad you did.

Planting bulbs

The big garden story at the moment is planting bulbs which carry their promise of glorious spring colour as we go into the darker months.  

There are so many lovely things to choose from – crocuses, hyacinths, daffodils and narcissi, lilies,  alliums…. and the advice for planting them is fairly straightforward.

Most of these spring bulbs will rot in soggy soil, so choose a well-drained, sunny or partly-shaded area.  If your soil is heavy, do mix in some grit to improve the drainage.

Plant the bulbs 2 or 3 times the depth of the bulb itself, and if in doubt go deeper rather than shallower.  Hence, the bigger the bulb, the deeper the hole.  Daffodils not planted deeply enough tend to produce only leaves not flowers. If you can break up the soil at the bottom of the hole a bit so much the better,  or even add a little compost to give the roots a good start.  If I’m planting several at the same time, I don’t backfill the holes until they are all in (so I know where I put them!), then water the area. Then, importantly, put a label in so you don’t forget where you planted them!

You can use a bulb-planter for the job, though I prefer a long trowel and here Caroline is using a long-bladed spade to plant big allium bulbs.

One more thing which is EXTREMELY relevant round here – if you are plagued by squirrels (or rabbits, mice, etc.) you need to deter them somehow.  They are less partial to daffs, alliums and snowdrops, but adore tulips (plant these in November) and lilies, as I know to my cost 🙄.  They are repelled by strong smells such as coffee grounds, mint (particularly peppermint), pepper, garlic or cayenne pepper, but I have found that unless you are prepared to keep re-applying these deterrents very regularly, the critters hold their noses and keep burrowing and chomping! The barrier that has worked best for me has been chicken wire (or in the case of pots, upturned wire hanging baskets) pegged down around the planting area. See what works best for you.

Gardening shorts

• Lots of our gardens still have summer flowers blooming like Cosmos, dahlias etc. Do continue to deadhead them – let’s get the most we can out of them before the frosts blacken them!

• It’s time to harvest quinces whose golden fruits are filling the garden with scent on still days. They will still be hard to touch but can be twisted or snipped from the branch carefully (they bruise easily) and then stored in a cool, dark place for a few weeks to ripen further.

• A crazy-useful tool for this rather ‘messy’ time of year is a hand rake for clearing out detritus from underneath perennials and shrubs that have finished flowering. Do click on the link below if you fancy getting (or giving) one to help with the great autumn tidy-up.

• Finish dividing perennials such as daylilies, geraniums etc. by the end of this month, or you will lose the advantage of them forming new roots in warm soil before the winter sets in in earnest.

You can read Laura’s review of two stunning Highland gardens we visited during our stay ‘oop north’ (Dundonnell and 2 Durnamuck) here. And if it’s easier for you, why not watch the video here?

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A perennial plant that flowers in mid- to late-autumn doesn’t often have shelf-appeal for the garden-centre-going public, but this one is a real winner with ferny foliage, bright flowers and charming seedheads all through the winter, which is why it’s one of Louise’s Great Plants this month:

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You can buy those ridiculously handy hand rakes here and on our ‘great offers’ page which has plenty of other great ideas too:

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