At the moment it is still summer and you should be reaping the rewards of all your hard work. However the September equinox brings the autumn season and this means getting things ready for autumn and winter and planning what you want your garden to look like next year! There are two equinoxes every year, in September and March, when the sun shines directly on the equator and the length of day and night is nearly equal. This video has some gardening tips for the month of September from Catherine Cutler, a horticulturist at the Eden Project in Cornwall, UK.
Flower Garden
Flower Garden
- Take cuttings from pansies and violas
- Pot up tender perennials grown outside and bring under cover when cold nights are forecast
- Prune rambling roses after flowering
- Grow bulbs in aquatic baskets ready to drop into gaps in the border in spring
- Rake autumn leaves from lawns and pick them out of borders
- Plant new climbers and shrubs into soil that’s well dug over and enriched with compost
- Spray Michaelmas daisies with fungicide to prevent mildew
- Cut down annuals when they’ve faded, adding them to the compost heap
- Plant crocus, fritillaries and other dwarf bulbs to naturalise in lawns and under trees
- Plant out spring bedding, including wallflowers, forget-me-nots and pansies
- Sow hardy annuals
- Transplant biennials
- Plant lilies outdoors and in pots
- Take cuttings of pelargoniums and fuchsias
- Take in house plants and late flowering chrysanthemums
- Thin seedlings sown last month
- Plant spring flowering bulbs outdoors and in containers for forcing
- Plant Tulips for next spring
- Plant prepared hyacinths for early blooms indoors.
- Plant Dutch Iris bulbs for outdoor cut flowers ready in early spring.
Veggies/Greenhouse
Veggie Garden
- Finish summer pruning trained forms of apple and pear trees
- Harvest apples, pears, plums and gages as they ripen
- Save seeds from good varieties of beans, herbs and tomatoes that you’ve enjoyed this year
- Pot up herbs to use in winter
- Prune out fruited blackberry stems and tie in new shoots to supports
- Take hardwood cuttings from fruit bushes
- Harvest haricot beans
- Sow broad beans and hardy peas
- Plant out garlic in mild areas, or start cloves in pots to transplant later
- Vegetables to sow now include spring cabbages, Japanese onions, turnips for green tops, winter lettuces, spinach, endive, corn salad, land cress and baby salad leaves
Greenhouse
- Line greenhouses with bubble polythene for insulation against falling night temperatures
- Clean staging and capillary matting to use next year
- Bring pots of tender agapanthus and eucomis under cover
- Check all plants for signs of pests and treat immediately
- Sow sweet peas in pots for early flowers next summer
- Take cuttings of succulents such as sedums
- Move potted peaches and nectarines under cover
- Bring pots of late-flowering chrysanthemums into the greenhouse
- Stop watering pots of achimenes, gloxinia and tuberous begonias to let them die down
- Plant dwarf bulbs in pots including iris, crocus, chionodoxa and scilla
Around The Garden
Around the garden
- Bulk up the compost heap with spent flowerheads and stems from around the garden
- Improve drainage on compacted lawns by spiking the ground with a fork or aerator
- Cut everlasting flowers and ornamental grasses for drying
- Put netting across ponds to stop autumn leaves falling into them and rotting down
- Order new turf to lay during damper autumn weather
- Choose your bare-root roses and bare-root shrubs for winter planting
- Collect, wash and store away canes and plant supports
- Check tree ties and plant supports are firmly in place
- Trim hedges to keep them neat and to control their size
- Deal with leatherjackets (cranefly larvae), found now on lawns, with a suitable insecticide or biological control