Seasonal Transitions: A Practical Approach to Garden Care
As we drift ever closer to the cooler seasons, my thoughts turn to how the garden has fared over what has certainly been a quite extraordinary summer, overall our garden has been fine. Yes, some plants have struggled but others have survived and produced, but isn’t that always the case?
I find it quite frustrating that the media scream about saving water and changing what we grow with the emphasis on doing it immediately when in reality there is no need for a knee jerk reaction to dig up all your plants, fill the garden with sand and start growing plants that like arid conditions.
I can almost guarantee that it will be teeming it down with rain over the autumn and winter and possibly sunny and dry next year but digging up your garden is not the answer.
The late Beth Chatto coined the phrase ‘right plant right place’, which is a great philosophy to adopt and it simply means that if you find out what the plant likes in terms of soil and position you have a fighting chance of success. The next key issue is looking after your soil by adding compost and mulch which gives it the capacity to hold moisture, nutrients and provide a good medium for healthy root growth. Collecting rainwater is great, using ‘grey’ water (from baths etc.) is fine but some of the products we use to wash have chemicals and additives that are not good for the garden, so make sure you know what they contain before watering your favourite plant. Timing is important and the way you water too, using a sprinkler is not good in hot weather as most of the water evaporates, so use a watering can or if possible a hose, and water either early morning or in the evening giving the plants a good drink. For newly planted subjects a full 2 gallon (10 litres) each is good practice, and with pots and containers you should water until it starts draining from the bottom of the pot which indicates that all the compost is soaked.
It has been a great summer for planted containers providing you have watered, fed and removed fading flowers, I have seen some stunning displays this year and have made notes of planting combinations that I plan to try next year. They will however start to fade, and exhausted plants with yellowing leaves are reaching the end of their display so it's time to think about what to plant for next spring. Nurseries and garden centres are stocking bulbs and bedding plants that are hardy and will happily grow throughout the colder months building their strength to provide stunning spring displays. I usually add extra grit to the compost I use for containers as this means that the pots don’t become waterlogged, water well after planting and generally they will not need any more unless we have a dry spring before they come into flower. With all our containers we reuse the compost, mixing it with 50 percent of new compost and adding a handful of general fertiliser such as chicken manure pellets. If the compost you remove from your pots is very ‘rooty’ you can throw it on the compost heap, or we place it in an empty, clean bulk bag, the type builders use, and as we clear out the greenhouse, grow bags and pots that had tomatoes and peppers, all the ‘rooty’ bits go in this bag, all top growth goes on the compost heap. Through the winter months all these ‘rooty’ bits rot down with the compost and can be easily broken up in spring to add to your container compost, or used as a mulch for special plants.
A greenhouse is an invaluable addition to the garden if you have the space. It can provide protection for overwintering plants and for growing on half hardy plants and vegetables in the early part of the year, or just storing your terracotta pots to protect them from frost.
By october all our tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and melons have finished so it is a great time to clear everything out and give the glass, greenhouse frame and pathways a good clean. There are greenhouse disinfectants quite readily available from garden centres and nurseries, many of which are based on citrus compounds that are safe to use and safe for the environment, they smell nice too. We line the greenhouse with bubble insulation using clips that fit into the glazing bars, available from the larger garden centres and online, this will be removed in late spring and stored for next year, it usually last four or five years and after which we cut it up and use it to wrap around outside pots in winter, to protect against frost damage. We also clean the outside glass and frame, clear the gutters and check the pipes to the water butts. It's also a good idea to empty the water butts and disinfect them too, they will soon fill up again with the autumn and winter rain
. The leaf dilemma, do you collect them all up or leave them? It's your choice really, if you like a neat and tidy space and if your garden is quite small then you may prefer to have a clean sweep and not leave them on the beds and borders. If you have a medium to large garden with large borders of shrubby plants then it makes sense to leave them around the plants but clear them from paved and grass areas. Whichever your situation leaves are a valuable source of organic matter, which in time will enrich your soil and help improve its water and nutrient holding capacity. Even if you do not have borders it is worth keeping the leaves in bags over the winter and using them in your containers, mixing with bought compost to refill your pots, saving you money and enhancing the compost. The key is to make sure when you collect them up that any twigs or weed growth are removed and you bag up only the leaves, so that when the leaves rot down they produce a flakey soft material free from stones or twigs, this is what we call ‘leaf mould’, it is certainly not mouldy but decomposed leaves and is like gold to the keen gardener, ideal for adding to compost, mulching around plants or adding to planting holes.
Happy gardening,
Martin.
( November, bare root planting season begins, putting the lawn to bed and harvesting and protecting winter vegetables).
