Gardening – Sept 23

Tom Strowlger

@garden_with_tom

The start of meteorological Autumn is here and with it comes ever shortening and cooler days. September can bring us late sun and warmth which we can enjoy whilst tidying up our changing gardens. This month we can spend time cutting back any untidy brown foliage and getting the garden Autumn ready. We should take a moment to delight in the garden we have created and so enjoyed however not for too long as now we need to turn the page on that season and get doing the early Autumn gardening jobs.

We want our annual and perennial Summer flowers to extend their floral display as far into Autumn as possible so we should be deadheading as many spent flowers as we can. This will ensure the plants concentrate their efforts and energy on any new buds and flowers. A snip of a deadhead here and there can give our summer plants a last push of colour. We should do the same to our hanging baskets to keep them both tidy and colourful before we take them down until next year.

The summer will have taken its toll on the garden lawn, so laying new turf and sowing grass seed whilst the soil remains warm and nights are becoming cooler and damper are the perfect conditions for seeds to germinate and roots to take. We can make our lawns look thick and presentable before the Autumn turns to Winter. The growth of established grass starts to slow this month so we should now be cutting the lawn on the highest lawnmower setting as we want the grass to have plenty of leaf to stay healthy in Autumn and Winter.

We can start to plan and order our spring bulbs, starting with crocuses, daffodils and hyacinths. We can plant the new bulbs into existing or new beds and borders in our gardens, with spring bulbs it is certainly the more planted the merrier. We want to make our spring gardens as colourful and green as possible so let’s use this month to start planting spring bulbs.

This month is ideal for preparing for all the future falling brown leaves, so we can set about building a new compost. Ideally a compost will be a self-enclosed environment made from old planks of wood or pallets opposed to just being a heap of leaves, we want the leaves to stay in one place and breakdown into a mulch that we can use on our borders and beds next year.

I love the changing of colours and browning leaves that Autumn time brings with it. We are watching our gardens transition from active green growth to the slow march towards dormancy. I always think September is a hangover month of summertime, a month with one leg in the past season and one leg in the future season. 

Please do follow me on Instagram @garden_with_tom for more seasonal gardening advice and tips.