Gardening Tips for Autumn

Here are our 10 top gardening tips for the cooler autumn months:

1. Early autumn is the best time to plant winter vegetables such as onions, kale, garlic, turnips, and broad beans. Great for hearty soups and warming stews.
2. Dig in and prepare the soil before winter sets in. It’s also a good time to move plants around, prepare your flowers beds and do any deep weeding work.
3. Mulching your garden is best done in autumn, just add a thin layer of mulch, fertiliser or compost to your flower beds to allow the nutrients to work their magic until spring.  Mulch also protects plants from the winter weather and provides a habitat for all sorts of creatures.
4. Plant or move your bulbs. Bulbs are generally pretty hardy, so can be planted or moved about in the autumn, ready to emerge in early spring.
5. Autumn is the time when birds will start to struggle to find as much food, so make sure you keep your bird feeders topped up now and throughout the winter. You can also leave out any fruit or vegetables that you won’t eat yourself, or even some of the seeds from the plants you have cut back.
6. After the driest summer on record, you should start looking at ways to save water this autumn. This will not only cut down on your water bills next year but will keep your garden looking succulent even in the hottest months. You can install a water butt or collection tank under a gutter drain to collect rainwater quickly and efficiently.
7. Start building a compost heap or bin. You’ll be raking up dried leaves, moss, and other seasonal debris from your garden anyway, so why not put it to good use? It will also help you to reduce the amount of food waste which goes to landfill, and it will be really helpful for tip number three next year! Find out more here.
8. Look after your lawn by scarifying it with a rake to remove any debris or unwanted thatch or moss. Pop down some autumn lawn feed. This will pay off in the spring months.
9. Late autumn is the time to prune back your hedges, trees, dead-head and cut back any flowering plants and rake up leaf litter from lawns and borders. Not only will this help your plants survive the winter cold, but it will help encourage better growth in the spring.
10. Have one last barbeque, clean up and cover your outdoor furniture, put out a hedgehog house, carve a pumpkin and go and play conkers!