Rosa Regosa hips
All gardeners should be busy. Work you do now will give you the best return. It’s an investment in next year’s garden. Here's a look at the main jobs and some of the best flowers.
October is a great month for gardeners because its one of the best times to plant most herbaceous perennials, trees, fruit and shrubs, carry on planting spring bulbs, plant your wall flowers, spring pansies or violas and take care of your problematic lawn. It’s even the best time to lay new turf. Work you do now will give you the best return. It’s an investment in next year’s garden.
It makes
sense to use the good weather this Autumn and get maintenance jobs done and
plants establishing before we are into the cold frosts and frozen ground of a
typical cold English winter.
Prepare
Your Soil
Things
thrive best when planted in well-prepared soil. It’s time to get cultivating
your soil whether you're planning a border a fruit garden or a new hedge. Add soil
conditioner to your beds and the organic matter content will both aid moisture
retention in a sandy soil and it will help to crumble the structure in a heavy
soil. A good sprinkling of bone meal benefits establishment of all but the lime
hating plants. Looking after your soil is an investment but it will save
significant money in the long run and your garden will bring you a lot more
pleasure.
Plan Your
Garden
I would
recommend you take a good look at the vistas in your garden. Where does it
delight and where does it lack interest. It might be worth taking a snap so you
remember before its cut back. If some plants have thrived and given you joyful
amounts of colour then its simply time to add some more or perhaps some areas
need a little contrasting colour, texture possibly with grasses or do you need
some height. Look at the picture in front of you as if it were a painting and
then let your imagination make the improvements you would like to see next
year, then plant!!!
Perennial Flowers
to Plant for Autumn Interest
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| Aster frikartii ‘Monch |
The vivid blue blends seamlessly with my Rozanne cranesbill geraniums that edge
my border and are still in flower.
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| Penstemon Heavenly Blue Plant penstemons for lots of flowers, There is a huge variety of colours. |
Sturdy
sedums always perform spectacularly well displaying big bold pinky red flower
heads and the bright oranges, yellows and red crocosmias are stunning and
definitely a good choice for late summer to Autumn. Anemone ‘Honorine Jobert’
(white) highlights my border, but all anemones are gorgeously floriferous.
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| Anemobe 'HonorineJobert' |
Other sometime forgotton perennials you might like to add might be Liriope which looks like a
short grass with small hyacinth like spikes in blue or white, providing clumps
of ground cover and lots of flower, ceratostigma also forms a carpet of blue flowers
and is excellent ground cover.
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| Lirope |
Perovskia ‘Little Spire’ has spindly frosted
grey stems and these cover in bright steely blue flowers mixing well in
most well drained borders.
 | ||
| Perovskia |
Heleniums, helianthemums,helianthus rubeckias and echinacea are glorious at the moment and have been for some time. There are quiet a few varieties in yellows and rusts. They definitely shout autumn.These plants are all from the Asteraceae family as are asters.
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| Here we have large daisy flowers of rubeckia though small flower headed varieties are also pretty. |
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| Hellianthemums |
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| Hellienium Morheim Beauty |
