September is that back to school back to work time of year, with new beginnings uppermost in the mind it is an ideal time to start thinking about new beginnings in the garden, planning changes to the garden for next year and tidying up the garden for winter. It is a great month to take stock, while deadheading perennials and roses and splitting large clumps of perennials such as irises (something I do every year as they seem very at home in my garden), what’s worked, what hasn’t and where are the gaps. As the last few summer flowers are blooming it reminds me what colours and textures are already in the border so I can think about and plan in what would look good with them.

Autumn colours in the garden

Personally I don’t like to deadhead and chop everything back for winter, leaving a few flowers on roses to turn into hips, the vibrant red and orange fruits adding colour during the winter and grasses or seed heads on architectural looking perennials, even better when shimmering with frost. Not only will the garden have some additional interest over winter the birds will thank you too, leaving a few seed heads and hips around will provide some food.

Autumn Berries

With the weather starting to cool down I’m planning the next phases of planting, whether in my own garden or for clients. Planting perennials now will give them a chance to settle in over winter before the main growing season starts next spring, the gardens that I planted last autumn (September and October) definitely had the advantage in the heat wave this summer over those planted up in spring, many of the flowers were blooming more profusely than I’ve seen before. Newly planted perennials or shrubs will still need watering to make sure they aren’t drying out, September often has a last burst of warmer weather – here’s hoping for an Indian Summer.

Late Summer and Autumn flowers

I love browsing catalogues to get new ideas, particularly choosing which bulbs to add to the borders although it is easy to get carried away and before I know it I’m hurriedly trying to get 300 bulbs into the garden before the light fades on a Saturday afternoon. September is the ideal time to order your bulbs ready for planting in October (alliums and narcissus) and November (tulips), whether looking to top up an existing collection or add new varieties and colours into the scheme. I love having a few extra tulips that I can cut to bring a bunch into the house. Or it could be that some new shrubs will give structure to the garden or roses for amazing scents and colours, November to March is the bare root planting season for shrubs (including roses and fruit), hedging and trees so September is the ideal time to choose and order any and let them settle in during the dormant season.

Grass is amazingly resilient, the number of lawns that were brown and crispy over summer that are now almost completely green again is remarkable, however they may need some additional attention during the autumn, any brown patches will need repairing. Aerating (if the lawn is small enough, which mine is it can be aerated with a fork), then scarifying the lawn followed by adding a sand top dressing and lawn seed. Even if it doesn’t need repairing the lawn can be mown less frequently and on a higher setting.

Fruit and vegetable harvest time

Autumn is a key time for harvesting any fruit that you’ve grown, lawns are often covered in windfall apples, pears and plums, all it takes is one windy day to scatter apples around my garden. Autumn cane fruit will also need picking and enjoying, autumn fruiting raspberries and blackberries may need netting to make sure that you can enjoy the last of the small, juicy fruits before the birds take them. Once you’ve enjoyed the harvest tie in new raspberry and blackberry canes and cut out the old ones once they have finished fruiting. Time to store the fruit and juice or cook any windfalls or slightly damaged fruit, turning them into whatever favourites you have from chutneys, jams, crumble or cakes.