Year Round Guide To Essential Garden Jobs

January

Hedging

• Gently brush snow off evergreen hedging with an upward motion.
• Erect temporary windbreaks for new evergreen hedges.
• Wind loosens recently planted roots. On a mild day, check new plants and as necessary tread the soil back round the roots gently but firmly.
• Box Blight is dormant in winter, so box clipped now will have healed by early spring. Burn the leaves.

Fruit Trees

• Finish pruning trees with pips, not stones. Leave stone fruit (in the Prunus family) until summer.
• Cover outdoor peach and nectarine trees to prevent peach leaf curl spores landing. Spray with a copper fungicide a couple of times between mid-winter and mid-spring. Do not spray once the flower buds begin to open.
• Check stored fruit for rotting ones.
• Feed established fruit trees with an organic, slow release fertiliser like blood, bone and fish, or seaweed meal. Apply under the mulch around the trees, water it in if there is no rain, and replace the mulch.

Garden Trees

• Protect newly planted or young conifer trees with a well secured wind barrier on the windward side.
• After storms, check that stakes are firm, and ties are neither broken nor too tight. Firm in loosened roots.
• High winds break branches, so cut back damaged wood if you can safely, or book your tree surgeon. Warn people of dangerous trees.

Roses

• Now until the end of winter is prime rose planting time.
• Check climbing roses are tied in to their support structures.
• If you have not already, cut bush roses back to prevent wind rock.

Soft Fruit

• Plant rhubarb crowns up to the middle of February. Start forcing established plants.
• Remove the top netting from fruit cages so hungry birds can eat hibernating pests.
• Check posts with straining wires for raspberries, blackberries etc.
• Weeding now reduces weeding in spring manyfold.
• Raspberries are shallow rooted, so never walk close to your canes, especially when the ground is frozen.

Climbers

• Prune wisteria.
• Cut ivies, climbing hydrangeas, and Virginia creeper away anywhere they may cause damage.
• Prune group 3 clematis back hard. Leave Montanas alone.

Bulbs

• Enjoy the snowdrops!
• Order ‘bulbs in the green’. By the time they arrive, you will see the gaps among the other spring flowering bulbs.
• Weed, tidy and trim the grass anywhere you have planted spring bulbs. Use a kneeler to spread your weight.
• Order summer flowering bulbs like pom-pom alliums, gladioli, scented freesias, bearded irises and crocosmia for spring planting.
• Put pots of bulbs that you forced indoors outside. Cut off the flower heads. Feed with a high potash feed. In spring, plant them; don’t force them again.

Olive and Bay

• Move potted trees to a frost-free place or wrap them up well. In a sheltered spot, ours tolerate temperatures down to about -10C.
• If they are under the eaves, water barely enough to stop their compost drying out.

Nature

• Feed the birds and provide unfrozen water.
• Protect pond pumps from frost, make sure your pond does not freeze over completely.

Other

• Get rid of your Christmas tree:
  • Check if the council offers a recycling / collection service.
  • Chip it for mulch.
  • “Plant” it as a birdfeeder.
  • Burn it outdoors, not indoors.
• Service your lawn mower, before the spring rush.
• Sort out the garden shed: decluttering / oiling / sharpening.
• Repair fences, trellises, decking, etc.
• Avoid walking on waterlogged or frosted lawns. If you have to, use planks to distribute your weight.
• Frozen beds will benefit from a layer of well rotted muck.
• Compost perennials that you left standing.
• Disperse worm casts on the lawn with a stiff broom in dry weather.

February

Hedging

• The best months for planting most bareroot hedging are November, February and March.
• Brush snow off evergreens with an upward motion.
• Hard prune overgrown hedges. Yew and Thuja do regrow from old wood, unlike other conifers, which need regular, light trims to prevent bald patches.
• Tie up conifer branches that bent down over winter. Use plastic coated wire to attach the drooping branch to the trunk, with an old rag to pad the wire.
• Use windbreaks to protect newly planted conifer hedges from drying winds.

Fruit Trees

• When it is not freezing, plant fruit trees. Cold weather now means that March will be good for planting.
• Hard frost can lift newly planted trees. When the freeze has passed, firm them back down. Adjust ties and stakes if needed.
• Nectarine and peach trees remain covered until late spring. Spray again with a copper compound, unless the flower buds are beginning to swell.
• Throw out stored fruit that is going bad.
• Sprinkle sulphate of potash around your established fruit trees as far as their branches extend, in addition to organic fertiliser like fish, blood and bonemeal, and any mulch. If you use a non-organic fertiliser, follow the instructions.

Garden Trees

• When the ground is not frozen, this is the best month to plant big trees.
• Prune dead, damaged or diseased branches when it is not freezing.
• Raising the crown of trees in your lawn by cutting off a few lower branches makes mowing easier, and lets in more light for grasses and bulbs.
• Last chance to wrap up your Dicksonia tree ferns.
• Prune mature Viburnum tinus and V. Bodnantense after flowering: remove a third of the older wood (the former can be cut down to the ground if necessary).

Roses

• February and March is ideal planting time.
• Towards the end of the month in the South (best left till March up North) prune back dark, brown twiggy ends that died back.
• If you did not prune in November, then you could this month.
• Apply a top dressing of rose food, then mulch.
• Check climbing roses are tied in to their supports.

Soft Fruit

• Last month to plant rhubarb crowns.
• Prune Autumn fruiting raspberry canes if you forgot. Sprinkle an organic high potash fertiliser around the plants, one that releases its nutrients slowly.
• This month and next are prime time to plant hybrid berries like loganberries, boysenberries and tayberries.
• Prune established blackcurrants.
• Trim mature red and white currants.
• Check gooseberry bushes to ensure they have an open centre, put up bird netting.
• Trim or tie in shoots on your summer fruiting raspberries that are too tall for their support.

Climbers

• Prune your wisteria if you did not in January!
• Prune yellow winter jasmine, Jasmine nudiflorum, once the flowers are over.
• Prune summer flowering jasmine, Jasminum officinale, by removing as many main stems as necessary.
• Prune Clematis in group 3, then feed and mulch.

Bulbs

• Crocuses and early daffodils should be popping up. Some bulbs like Iris reticulata like overhead protection from rain and snow.
• Great month for bulbs in the green.
• Divide overcrowded snowdrop clumps once they finish flowering.

Olive and Bay

• Same advice as for December, and it will apply in March.
• If the temperature plummets, move your potted bays to a frost-free place or wrap them well with horticultural fleece.
• If your potted trees are under the eaves, water just enough to stop their compost completely drying out.

Nature

• Feed wild birds and small mammals.

Other

• Check your gutters for moss and leaves.
• Avoid walking over waterlogged or frosted grass.
• Open greenhouse doors and windows at noon on a sunny day to let the air circulate.
• Order your seeds, multi-purpose composts, vermiculites, labels, seed trays etc.
• Hellebores should still be looking great. Snip off large / old leaves that hide flowers.

March

Hedging

• Weeds around your hedge plants: a sharp hoe on a dry day is ideal for slicing them down, but it’s easier to uproot weeds when the soil is wet.
• When consistently higher temperatures are forecast, take protection / windbreaks off evergreen hedges.
• Evergreen shrubs only absorb soil moisture at about 4-5C, so it’s a good time to move them.
• Hard prune mature Buddleja bushes by cutting out old branches at ground level.

Fruit Trees

• March & April are great for planting (commercial orchards are planted even later, in June).
• If it has been dry, especially if your trees are in the rain shadow of a wall, water well.
• Be ready to throw fleece over bush trees, or wall-trained trees, to protect newly opened buds and blossom from frost.
• Pollinate indoor nectarine and peach trees by hand at midday, three times in total over 2-3 days.
• Feed mature trees with a high potash feed. Pull away mulch, apply the fertiliser, water so that the fertiliser dissolves, and replace the mulch.
• If you had pear midge, use a bifenthrin spray over the whole tree when the buds are white and the air is still.
• Towards the end of the month, spray apple trees that had scab last year.
• Hard prune ornamental dogwoods.

Garden Trees

• Mulch around ornamental trees for the first 3 years of their life. Woodchips, organic mulch, or a mulch mat will all do the job.
• It’s the last good month to plant large bareroot trees. The key things are soil preparation and then watering. How to plant a big tree video.

Roses

• March is the last (and best) month for planting bare root roses.
• Many people prefer to prune their hybrid teas and floribundas in spring. If you think that the frosts are over, prune with sharp secateurs or loppers.
• Don’t prune rambling roses: you will lose all the flowers!

Soft Fruit

• Autumn fruiting raspberries should have been cut down to the ground and feed with a high potash fertiliser already, but if you are leaving it this late, be careful of the new shoots.
• Briars like blackberries, loganberries and tayberries fruit on last year’s growth. Tie old growth in one direction and new growth in another to make pruning easier.
• Pop cloches or a clear plastic container over a few strawberry plants for early fruit.
• Gooseberry advice is the same as February.
• Prune and feed blueberries if they need it.

Climbers

• In case you didn’t in February (we understand, it’s cold), prune your yellow winter jasmine once the flowers are over.
• Prune summer flowering jasmine, Jasminum officinale, by removing as many main stems as you feel necessary.
• Trim Clematis in pruning Group 2.
• Group 1 clematis like C. armandii or C. montana should bloom soon.
• Chop back overgrown honeysuckle when the buds break, so you can see which stems will flower and which are not worth keeping.
• Remove spent flowers on Hydrangea petiolaris.

Lavender

• Pre-order lavender plants. The biggest and best plants always sell out fast.
• Start preparing a new Lavender bed now.

Bulbs

• Deadhead daffodils towards the end of the month. Leave the foliage intact.
• Plant snowdrops, aconites and bluebells in the green. Look at focal points in your garden that lack bulbs and imagine white, blue or yellow there.
• Plant out forced indoor bulbs with a bit of high potash feed.
• Ponder summer bulbs to add to your garden: eucomis, gladiolus, gladioli, lilies.

Olive and Bay

• Bring out potted olive trees. Keep them watered, with a little phostrogen once a month.
• Bays need their annual feed of slow release fertiliser.

Herbs and Veg

• Start sowing tomatoes, aubergines and peppers. Succession sow lettuce, cabbage and cauliflower.
• Experiment with veg in with your herbaceous borders – try carrot leaves next to Hostas, Ruby chard with Gazanias, or beetroot with Begonias.

Borders and Flowers

• If you sowed sweet peas in autumn, plant them out towards the end of the month. To sow them direct, soaking the seed in water for an hour or two beforehand; make a nick with a knife or use a nail file to weaken the outer skin.
• Winter flowering plants like Skimmias, Sarcococcas, Lonicera purpusii, Hamamelis and some Viburnums will be going over. Lightly trim spent flowers and prune into shape.

Other

• Clean your greenhouse glass to maximise the light for your seedlings. Research automatic vent openers.
• Store your compost in the greenhouse so they are warm when you need them.
• Feed or repot plants that were in your greenhouse over winter.
• Scarify your lawn.
• Start your regular mowing regime, keep the blades high to begin with. Little and often is best.
• Before you garden, put hand cream on and then gardening gloves.

April

Hedging

• Our cold store is crammed with bareroot hedging for planting over the next month. If you can water them, hedging planted in April will do well, and it’s probably the best time to plant beech.
• Do not cut back newly planted native hedging now if you forgot at planting time, do it in November.
• Last chance to hard prune ornamental dogwoods.
• A cool April is good for planting a coniferous or evergreen hedge like holly or box, but it may be too late if it was a warm winter. Deciduous hedging is fine because our cold store keeps it dormant.

Fruit Trees

• Our fruit trees are now in cold storage, where they will sit happily for another couple of weeks. Most modern commercial orchards are planted late, some in May or June, because the trees respond well to the warm soil and daylight hours. Simply water them well and remove the fruitlets so they can build their roots and branches for next season.

Garden Trees

• For big ornamental trees the bare root season is over, but not for pot grown trees. Water the plant well in its pot, then ease out the rootball before following our tree planting instructions as you would for a bareroot tree, ending up with the top of the compost from the pot level with the ground.
• Prune frost damaged shoots back to a healthy bud, or a stem junction.
• Prune mature Cotinus coggyria (smoke bush) and ornamental Sambucus like Black Lace or Aurea. Apply a general fertiliser and water well.
• Japanese quince and yellow forsythia flowers will nearly be over. Cut the flowered side shoots back to 2 to 3 buds. If trained against a wall, tie in as many shoots as you need to fill gaps, then prune the flowered shoots down to one or two buds.

Roses

• Spray with Uncle Tom’s Rose tonic against black spot. This usually needs to be done throughout the summer, especially after a warm winter.
• Hose aphids off, or zap them with an organic bug spray.
• Your climbing roses should be tied in horizontally to encourage flowers. Any uprights can be bent over (gently) to force more flowers along the stem.
• Mulch

Soft Fruit

• Feed blackcurrants, blackberries and hybrid berries with a high nitrogen feed, without over feeding them: follow the instructions on the packet, erring on the side of too little.
• Weed and mulch around raspberry canes and other soft fruit plants. Hand weed round raspberries, as they are too shallow rooted to hoe.
• Plant annuals like Wallflowers and Sweet Peas around your fruit cage to attract friendly insects. Keep an eye out for larvae, aphids etc.
• Rhubarb in forcing pots will be ready. Leave the forced plants exposed tand feed well – don’t pick more stems this year.
• Check Gooseberries for mildew, use a fungicide as needed.
• Tie in grape vine shoots that you wish to keep, thin where necessary, and cut the ends off long shoots to encourage fruit rather than foliage.

Climbers

• Tie in new clematis shoots.

Lavender

• Lavender deliveries begin when the weather is right: could be the middle of April, but usually in May. Order early to beat the rush and to get the lavender varieties you desire.
• Give your established lavender a light trim, especially if you forgot last autumn. Take 2-4cm off shoot tips and remove spent flowers. Avoid cutting into wood that’s more than a year old.

Bulbs

• Dead head early spring flowering bulbs such as daffodils: snap off the head behind the swollen part. Leave the stem intact, allowing it and the foliage to die back slowly over at least 6 weeks, then you can mow.
• Plant out summer flowering bulbs/tubers like dahlias and gladioli. On clay soil, sprinkle a layer of grit in the bottom of the planting hole.

Olive and Bay

• Plants in pots need watering. Feed olive trees with phostrogen once a month.
• If you didn’t give slow release fertiliser to potted bay, now is as good a time as any for this annual necessity.

Herbs and Veg

• Harvest purple sprouting broccoli and the last leeks or kale. Stock up on labels, canes, netting, composts, and seed trays, and sharpen your tools. If it is still cold at night, hold off sowing vegetables outside.
• Clay soils take longer to warm up than lighter, sandy soils, so delay your seed sowing on them. When weeds are germinating, chances are good that your seeds will too.
• Succession sow lettuces, beetroot, chard, and some pretty annuals for your pots and borders like marigolds, poppies, and the unusual blue green cerinthe. Wait until the end of the month to sow vegetables like squash, courgette and French beans, in an unheated greenhouse.
• Plant potatoes, and be prepared to fleece the ground if a frost is forecast.

Other

• Verbena bonariensis, Aquilegias, Digitalis, and Pulmonarias self-sow everywhere, and April is an ideal time to re-plant these seedlings.
• Every hour of weeding now saves several later in the year.
• Slugs and snails love a warm, wet April, so organic slug pellets will come in handy.
• Mow your lawn once a week. Start on a high setting and over about 6 weeks progressively lower the blades. Dig out weeds like docks, dandelions, plantain or thistle individually. Even out lumps in your lawn. Use an old knife to cut coarse grass in criss cross strokes, then pull out the tufts.
• Go round the lawn edges with edging shears.
• Attend to established pots of perennials or shrubs. Scrape off the top layer of compost, without damaging the roots. Replace it with fresh compost like black gold, a dash of slow release fertiliser, and maybe water retaining gels.

May

Hedging

• To encourage bushiness, formal or evergreen hedging responds well to a light May trim, even if it has not reached its desired height (with Yew, only trim the sides, not the tops, until it’s as high as you want it).
• Keep newly planted hedges well watered.
• If your copper or green beech hedge is not in leaf, relax. It happens late, especially with newly planted ones.
• Lavender is the best small summer hedge and edging plant: order now for delivery this month, when the soil has warmed up (there’s no benefit to planting it out sooner).

Fruit Trees

• Unwrap your peach, nectarine and cherry trees from their polythene protection. While they are in blossom, check the forecast for night frosts and have a large swathe of horticultural fleece ready to drape over them.
• Fruit trees with pips (apples, pears, quinces etc) should have been pruned in winter. Stone fruits (in the Prunus family) are far better pruned in late spring/early summer, to avoid silver leaf disease. Assess new side shoots grown this year: when there are six leaves, pinch out the growing tip.
• Morello cherries work differently because they fruit on year old wood.

Garden Trees

• Keep watering. On sandy soil, you may need to water almost every day.
• A mulch mat or a circle of organic mulch prevents evaporation from the ground around the roots, but make sure the soil is really well watered first. Grass clippings piled about 5-10cm high work well, just don’t pile them against the trunk.

Roses

• Continue the aphid patrol, and look out for black spot. Prevention is better than cure, so spray against black spot when the leaves first open. Water plants at the root so that you do not splash fungal spores around.
• Tie in shoots sent out by rambling or climbing roses. Maximise flowers by keeping the shoots horizontal.

Soft Fruit

• Protect strawberries from mud and slugs by tucking straw underneath and around the plant, or invest in strawberry matting. Put up bird netting, or cover with horticultural fleece. Cut off runners. To propagate new plants, pick the flowers or unripe fruit off a few plants, and let their runners go crazy. Read more about strawberry crop rotation.
• Remove cloches for at least part of the day so that pollinating insects get in. If in doubt, use a small soft brush to transfer pollen from one flower to another.
• Check raspberry canes that are coming up. Remove the weakest canes where they look crowded.
• If May is dry, water fruit plants well, and spread mulch around.

Climbers

• Montana Clematis are spectacular in May (Alba and Mayleen are classics). They do not need annual pruning, but to confine them to a smaller area, or get more flowers at the base, untangle the shoots where possible, removing dead or diseased wood, then trim the stems to where you want.
• Prune pyracantha trained up a wall, especially if it is climbing into gutters. Take out shoots growing into the wall, and reduce the breastwood (shoots growing away from the main branches) to about 8cm.
• Keep checking on all climbers, tying in new shoots to avoid a tangle. Well spaced shoots make better flowers.

Lavender

• May is a prime lavender planting month, so have a look at our lavender growing guide if it’s new to you.
• Water newly planted lavender.
• Existing lavender will be growing away, and early this month is the last chance to trim straggly plants without sacrificing flowers.

Bulbs

• Continue dead-heading spent flowers, leaving the stalks and leaves intact to die down over a minimum of 6 weeks.
• If you are changing around a spring display that included bulbs and flowers like forget-me-nots or wallflowers, dig up the bulbs carefully with the roots intact and place them in a shallow trench. Cover the bulbs with soil, label them, and wait for the foliage to die down before lifting the bulbs completely and storing them somewhere frost free and dry.
• Sprinkle a general garden fertiliser around bulbs and water in if there is no immediate rain forecast.
• Alliums will be in full swing. Some of the larger ones like Christophii might need staking, unless grown next to another supportive perennial. Their spent heads look fantastic, so don’t cut them back.
• Notes bare patches in your garden that could use a bulb or two next spring. Ideally, order them in July/August for September planting.

Olive and Bay

• Water trees in containers regularly. Give your olive its monthly phostrogen.

Other

• Fill your house with the scent of lilac; strip the leaves from the stem and sear the base in boiling water for ten seconds, then leave to soak in cold water overnight before arranging them in vases.
• Buy a National Gardens Scheme Yellow Book, visit some gardens and a bluebell wood.
• Succession sow leafy salad crops like lettuce, chard and spinach, herbs like chervil or coriander, and also beetroot, broad beans and radishes.
• Sow some French and runner beans in pots in your greenhouse, and some outside that will come on later. Sweetcorn, courgettes, marrow and squashes are also best sown in this way. Sweetcorn is wind pollinated, so plant it in blocks, not rows. These plants attract slugs and snails, so use a halved plastic water/fizzy drink bottle as a protective cloche.
• Earth up potatoes. The accompanying mint required for boiled potatoes is easy to grow but invasive, so confine it to a pot, or lift and divide it now to remove wandering roots.
• Pinch out Broad bean tips to prevent blackfly when they flower. Add the tips to risotto or braise them in butter.
• Hoe annual weeds and dig out perennial regularly. Sharpen your hoe well, and aim to use it on a dry day when it’s easier to slice the weeds.
• Tackle lawn weeds and fertilise the grass; there are lots of good ‘feed and weed’ products. Do not overdose your lawn with any product, you can always use more later.
• Mow lawns at least weekly. Aim for a closer cut each time, but not too short or you will end up with yellowed grass and bare patches. Shorter grass also needs more water.
• Sow new lawns before the weather gets too hot for grass seed to germinate. When new grass grows to 2cm high, roll the area again. This ‘cracks’ seed that did not germinate yet, and encourages the new grass to shoot from the base.
• Make nettle soup, pesto or risotto from the well-washed top four or five leaves of a bunch of nettles growing away from roads.
• Clean the barbecue.

June

Watering in dry periods from June onwards is essential for containers and anything you recently planted.

Hedging

• The bare root hedging season is over, so buy potted plants to fill gaps that may appear through the season.
• Deciduous plants sold in pots include copper or green Beech and Hornbeam, for evergreen hedging Laurel, Eleagnus or Griselinia are excellent options, or Box for lower hedges.
• Fast-growing evergreen hedges such as Privet, Shrub Honeysuckle and Cotoneaster need to be clipped up to 3 times a year.
• Don’t clip your box hedges on Derby Day: do it in winter.

Lavender

Few plants give as much in terms of flowering, colour, scent, foliage and low maintenance as lavender, and June/July is a great time to plant it.

Give Doorways a Make-Over

Pot grown lollipop Bay trees either side of a doorway add a bit of style, or they are good planted in well drained soil, making a clear statement on the sides of paths.

Need a splash of colour?

Hasten to browse our Bedding Plants, Perennials and Dahlias, or why not plant some Clematis and Roses for flamboyant blooms?

Fruit Trees & Bushes

• Apply grease bands to young fruit trees or paint grease strips on to larger ones to protect them from earwigs and aphid-farming ants.
• Hang plum fruit moth traps.
• Look out for mildew, typically caused by dehydration stress.

Roses

• Tie new growth on vigorous climbing roses to their supports.
• Deadhead repeat flowering roses. If you did not do so in spring, now is a good time to give your roses a good rose feed.
• Treat blackspot, rust and mildew with a fungus killer.

Bulbs

• Cut back the dead foliage of spring flowering bulbs in your borders and start mowing where they grow in grass.
• If you can replant them straight away, lift and divide clumps that are overcrowded, or mark them with a cane for dividing in autumn.

Other

• Hoe borders regularly. Weed underneath hedges, especially newly planted ones.
• Mow lawns weekly. The clippings can be used as mulch, or added to your compost heap mixed in with “brown matter” to keep everything aerobic.

July

Hedging

• Trim conifer hedges, especially vigorous varieties like Leylandii.
• Newly planted hedges should be watered over the whole summer. Aim your hose at the roots, or invest in a porous seep hose. After watering, pull out weeds or grass around the base. Add to the mulch as necessary.

Fruit Trees

• Wire trained trees: cut back side shoots to about 7cm long, and remove growths that spoil the shape of fans & espaliers. If the tree has reached the limits of its space, prune the end of each stem to 2-3 buds of the current year’s growth. If you want to it to grow bigger, leave this pruning until winter, when you cut each stem back by a third.
• Remove fruit on overladen branches, especially the plum family, or use V-shaped sticks to prop the branches up. Even with apples and pears, you will get a better crop if you thin now. The fully ripe fruit should not touch, so leave more space for apples than for plums.
• Protect stone fruit from birds with fine mesh netting or horticultural fleece.
• Water newly planted fruit trees.

Garden Trees & Shrubs

• Trees or shrubs that produced a mass of shoots around the base, called suckers, are pouring energy into them – Ash, Rowan and many grafted fruit trees are prone to this. Tearing them off is better than cutting them.
• Variegated plants may revert, produce plain green leaves: snip off these shoots on sight.
• Deadhead philadelphus flowerheads and tidy up the plant.
• Give a sprinkling of general organic fertiliser to flowering perennials like asters, chrysanthemums and dahlias.

Roses

• Prune spent roses back to an outward facing bud in a leaf axil lower down the stem.
• Even if you do not see blackspot and rust, a preventative fungicide spray is recommended.
• Mildew attacks are more common in dry weather. Watering thoroughly will help.

Soft Fruit

• Summer fruiting raspberries will be cropping, so pick and eat all you can, and put the excess on trays in the freezer. When they are solid, bag them up so that they retain their shape when unfrozen.
• Red and whitecurrants should be ripening. Snip whole clusters of the fruit from the plant using pruners. Towards the end of the month, prune white & redcurrants and gooseberries.
• Make redcurrant jelly and summer pudding. Whitecurrants are great in a ‘white’ fruit salad with melon, kiwis, and lychees.
• Harvest and prune blackcurrants.
• Continue to train hybrid berries and blackberries so that you have fruiting canes growing in one direction, and the new canes in the other. Keep tying in stray growth.

Greenhouses and Tunnels

Greenhouses need shading and ventilation. Keep the doors open on hot days and splash water onto the floor to create a more humid atmosphere that is less attractive to red spider mite.

Lawns

• Water, especially if you recently put down turf. Use a sprinkler on a still day.
• In hot weather, raise the blades on your mower to leave the grass longer.
• All lawns look better for being edged.

Make Elderflower Cordial.

August

Hedging

• Most hedge plants prefer their last trim before the colder seasons set in; conifer hedges continue to grow until October, so August may be their penultimate trim. To get a level top, tightly tie twine at the desired height between posts set either end of the hedge. Trim the sides first, starting at the bottom. The aim is to leave it wider at the base than at the top. Once you are happy with the sides, trim the top using the twine as a guide. Conifer hedges must be maintained at the desired height and width because they will not grow back from old wood (Yew and Thuja are exceptions). If your hedge is composed of a large leaved plant like laurel, it’s best to prune it with secateurs rather than shears, thus trimming off whole leaves.

Fruit Trees

• Early apples like Katy or Discovery may be ready at the end of the month. Ripe fruit should come away, stalk intact, very easily with a gentle twist. Early fruiters tend not to be keepers, so eat your harvest promptly.
• Prune fan trained plums, damsons and sweet cherries after the harvest. Cut back by half shoots that bore fruit.
• Nectarines, peaches, and acid cherries like Morello need all of the sideshoots growing from the main branches pruned to 4 inches, and secondary sideshoots to 2 inches.
• Cordon fruit are slightly different: cut back side stems to 3 inches. Shoots that were cut back like this last year will have grown their own side shoots: cut them back to an inch. Once the main stem has reached the limit of its support, it should be pruned as per the main side stems, i.e. back to 3 inches.
• Water fruit trees growing close to a wall especially well.

Garden Trees & Shrubs

• Water new plants thoroughly, and feed shrubs in pots weekly. Woody shrubs require a high potash fertiliser to ripen their wood before winter.
• Hoe around the bases of plants on a dry day, using a well sharpened hoe that cuts the tops of the weed off (dry weather is best for hoeing, wet weather is best for pulling weeds up by the root).

Roses

• Deadhead down to a good, outward facing bud at least one or two leaves below the flowered stem. Finding a strong bud increases your chances of another flower forming, but remember that the harder you prune, the more vigorously the rose will respond with a strong shoot. Feed and water if the dead-heading evolves into a pruning session.
• Prune rambling roses after they finish flowering. They flower on last year’s wood, so first cut the oldest wood to the ground. Second, cut sideshoots that flowered on the remaining mature stems back to 2-3 buds from the stem. Third, tie in new wood ready to flower next year.
• Wild roses should be left to produce hips in the autumn.

Climbers

• Trim your wisteria’s whippy growths to within five or six buds from the main stem, or tie in that new growth to extend the framework of a young specimen.
• You may need a ladder to deadhead the top section of your climbers when they finish flowering.

Soft Fruit

• Prune summer fruiting raspberry canes that produced fruit out at ground level, then tie strong, new canes into your support structure.
• Prune cordon and fan trained redcurrant and gooseberry bushes now the fruit has been harvested.
• Unless it is very dry, August is a good time to plant new strawberry plants. If there is a water shortage or you are going away, put this off till September. Old strawberry plants that are virus free (indicated by streaky, rather than plain green foliage) are good for runners to make new plants. Always plant strawberries on ground where they were not grown recently.
• To force strawberries for early fruit next summer, pot up some plantlets in 18cm pots and leave them outside. In autumn, put the pots on their side so that they do not become too wet. Early in the new year, take the pots into a greenhouse.

Lavender

• When the flowers are beginning to dry out, trim the spikes back and remove about 2.5cm of the leafy growth at the tips of shoots at the same time. When old lavender gets twiggy and straggly, either take cuttings, or buy in replacements.

Bulbs

• Start thinking about daffodils for next year! Ideally, they should be planted by the end of October.
• Colchicums can be planted during August. They look best surrounded by grass or other low plants.
• Order prepared hyacinth and some narcissi to pot up ready for December. Ordinary potting compost is perfect unless you are planting the bulbs in a decorative pot that has no drainage holes, in which case use bulb fibre. Put the pots into a cool, dark place, and after about 6 weeks inspect them daily; once you can see an inch of shoot, bring the pots in to cool, light conditions.

Olive and Bay

• Feed once a month and water regularly.

Perennials

• Cut back perennials like Achilleas that tend to collapse onto plants around them. Late flowering perennials like asters and rudbeckias are worth staking. Geraniums that are over should be cut down, watered and fed in the hopes that they may return in autumn.
• Take pelargonium cuttings. Use a gritty, light soil cut 50:50 with vermiculite as your potting medium.

Herbs and Veg

• Sow chard, kale and winter lettuces like Salad Bowl or Merveille de Quatre Saisons.
• Leave out blocks of wood or up turned pots for slugs to shelter in overnight, and dispose of them in the morning.
• Check for blossom end rot in tomatoes. Water thoroughly to try to prevent this from worsening.
• During a hot spell, splash water on the floor of your greenhouse to keep the atmosphere humid and cooler. Leave the doors and ventilators open during the day.

Other

• Book somebody to water your garden and harvest veg while you are away.
• Raise the blades on your lawn mower if the weather is hot and dry; you may need to mow less frequently. No need to water well established lawns, the grass will recover when rain returns. Towards the end of the month, apply a high phosphate fertiliser.
• Prepare the ground for a new lawn. The wet and warm of autumn is the most user-friendly time to establish a new lawn using seed or turf. Dig over the area, removing weeds. Leave it alone so the perennial weeds have time to grow back a little, then finish them off before laying the turf or seeding.
• Lots of medicinal herbs are at their best in August, such as valerian, feverfew, camomile and St John’s Wort.
• Fill up your bird baths with water.

September

Hedging

• Assuming you trimmed in August, there isn’t much to do apart from checking for damage and pruning diseased or damaged wood.
• If the weather is dry, water anything that has been planted this year.
• If you are planning a new hedge, mark out the area and weed it thoroughly. Then consider using a weed-proof membrane such as our Mypex in advance. Our video on how to plant a country hedge shows how to apply it.

Fruit Trees

• Protect ripening fruit with netting.
• Dessert pears are best picked unripe and left to develop in a cool place, unwrapped on slatted shelves for air circulation. Bring a few to the warmth of the kitchen, where they will ripen rapidly. Once ripe, store them wrapped in newspaper in the fridge.
• Ripe apples come away from the tree with a gentle twist. Only store the perfect ones. Wrapping them in newspaper is not essential, but it helps. Place them in a cardboard box or on a shelf. It’s fine to prune your trees as soon as the fruit has been picked.

Garden Trees & Shrubs

• The warm soil and damp mornings are excellent for planting out container grown stock.
• Move your existing evergreen shrubs. Dig around the plant as far and as deep as you are able, to get a generous a rootball. Rock the plant back and forth to loosen it. Dig a new hole big enough to fit the roots in comfortably, and make sure that the plant ends up at the same level in the soil as before. Stake if necessary, and water well. In a windy site, it’s best to put up some shelter against drying winds.
• Prune shrubs like Philadelphus, Viburnums or Elaeagnus that were struck by mildew or aphids back to healthy growth. Burn the clippings.
• Grafted trees may produce suckers. When they are new, these are easy to pull off; snipping them off usually encourages them to grow back.
• Trees or shrubs in pots no longer need fertiliser, only a last feed with sulphate of potash or rock potash to ripen wood for winter.

Roses

• If your climbing rose is no longer producing flowers (some can keep flowering until November), prune it. With your Wilkinson Sword pruners, start by removing stems that are dead, damaged or look unhealthy. If there are signs of disease, burn or bin the prunings. Next, remove old shoots at the base to make room, and tie strong new shoots that grew this year into the support. Then cut back sideshoots from the main stems to 2-3 buds.
• Deadhead bush roses.
• Ramblers, Ramanas / rugosas and some wild roses will produce hips, with which you can make rosehip jelly.
• Remove root suckers.
• Where you had blackspot or fungal problems, sweep up the leaves and burn or bin them.
• Order your bare root roses now to avoid disappointment.

Soft Fruit

• Autumn fruiting raspberries should be cropping. Leave the canes unpruned until late winter.
• Remove summer fruiting raspberry canes and tie in the new canes.

Climbers

• Autumn is a fine time to plant container-grown climbers, before the soil cools down.

Lavender

• Ideally lavender should have been trimmed in August, but September will do. Remove the spent flowers, and take off a tiny bit of the current year’s growth.
• Grub out old, straggly lavender hedges in preparation for next year, giving the soil a few months to rest.

Bulbs

• Planting flower bulbs is time consuming, so read our guide to prepare.
• Last chance to plant indoor bulbs ready for Christmas. Hyacinths and Amaryllis are the traditional choices, but there is no reason not to pot up the smaller bulbs like chionodoxa, crocus or anemone.
• Lift gladioli corms once the leaves go yellow and wither, cutting them down to 2-3 inches and discarding the old part of the corm. Hang onto the baby corms and sow them like seeds in a seedtray of compost next spring.

Olive and Bay

• Feed once a month and water regularly.

Herbs & Veg

• Outdoor tomatoes may not have reddened yet. Hasten ripening by laying the plant down on straw and putting a cloche over the tomatoes to concentrate the effects of the sun.
• For the winter, sow chervil seeds, both types of parsley, coriander and dill inside to germinate, then plant them outside if the weather is not too cold after a few weeks. Use up the last of your existing herbs: sprigs of tarragon in a bottle of white wine vinegar will keep for ages, great for hollandaise sauce and salad dressings.
• Pick the last of your pumpkins, marrows and squashes and leave them in the sun to cure. If the weather is wet, store them in a greenhouse for a few weeks. Time to look up chutney recipes!
• Plant garlic and maybe cover with a bird net.

Other

• Get a headstart for your spring flower borders by sowing hardy annuals, which leaves less of a gap between the end of the bulbs and the beginning of the summer flowers. Seeds to sow include Cerinthe, Calendula, Centaurea and some poppies. If you are gardening on clay, you might be advised to sow into modules and keep them in a green house over winter.
• Lawns don’t need mowing so often. Throughout autumn, scarify your lawn, and aerate the lawn once, then top dress it using sharp sand, compost and top soil, with some grass seed if needed. Alternatively, use an autumn “feed and weed” product. To re-seed a bare patch, mix the seed with compost to scatter over the raked area, then peg polythene over it to encourage germination.
• For improving heavy clay beds, dig in pea shingle and organic matter now before the soil becomes too sticky to work “easily”. This will improve drainage and raise the beds a little so that they warm up faster in spring.
• Build a compost bin.
• Clean your greenhouse with a diluted household bleach so that you can overwinter plants without fear of pests. Wash down the glass panes to maximise the light.

October

Hedging

• Deciduous Hedging: Bare-root hedging can be planted all through the winter, whenever the soil is not frozen. If it is dry, recently planted deciduous hedges could do with some watering, and weeding around the base if you have not used mulch fabric.
• Conifer Hedging: Now and December is the time to plant all evergreen hedges, giving them a chance to establish in warm, damp autumnal soil. If this is not possible, delay planting them until spring.

Fast-growing conifer hedges, such as Western Red Cedar (Thuja), Lawson’s Cypress, or Leylandii, need their final trim for the year, if you haven’t already. Young coniferous hedges only need a yearly winter trim, but mature ones need trimming more often. They do not regrow from old wood, so you end up with bald patches if you try to correct an overgrown hedge (Thuja and Yew are the exceptions, but still it’s better to keep them tidy).

Fruit and Nut Trees

• Apply grease bands or grease against winter moths.
• Apply copper fungicide to peach and nectarine trees as the leaves begin to fall. If possible, protect them with a polythene cover. Rake up all the leaves and burn them or bin them.
• October to early-November is the best time to prune your walnut trees.

Harvesting Pears and Quinces

• Unlike most apples, pears are best picked before they are ripe to improve their flavour. Varieties like Beurre Hardy, Glou Morceau and the last of any unpicked Conference or Concorde should be harvested and left in a cool, dry, dark place to ripen slowly. To accelerate their ripening, bring them into a warm, light kitchen. They should take about two days to reach perfection. Some pears like Doyenne du Comice should be left on the tree until November, so check the details of your variety.
• Pick quinces such as Vranja, Serbian Gold and Meech’s Prolific in late October, when they are still yellow, downy and hard. Do not be deceived by their unyielding flesh: it bruises easily.

Garden Trees

• Rake up leaves from your lawn and borders. Your delphiniums and other juicy perennials will not thank you next year if you leave leaves lying around for the slugs!

Roses

• Rake up leaves, which often contain diseases like black spot, so burn or bin them.
• Climbing rose stems stiffen in autumn, so prune and/or tie them in before strong winds snap them off.
• In windy areas, reduce the overall height of taller bush roses by about third to prevent wind rock. Do not be precise at this stage: leave your careful pruning until early spring.

Soft Fruit

• Cut down summer-fruiting raspberry canes and thin the weakest new growth.

Climbers

• Plant climbers that are hardy enough to survive the winter, which all of ours are.
• Thoroughly water climbing plants that you put in earlier if the weather is dry.

Lavender

• If you haven’t yet trimmed off the spent flower heads, do so now. You can clip the shrubs to tidy them up, but don’t cut into old wood.

Bulbs

• It’s the ideal time to plant spring-flowering bulbs, whether in the garden or in pots.
• For pots and planters, try planting layers of bulbs in a lasagne.
• Tulips can be planted out later as they come into flower a little after the smaller bulbs. For heavy, clay or wet soils, layer some grit at the bottom of the planting hole.

Olive and Bay

• Feed your olive tree with phostrogen. Clip your bay towards the end of the month.

Other

• This is the last month where weeds set seed. Hoe them down, dig up their roots where you can, and burn anything with seeds.
• Start your sweet pea seeds off now in a frost-free greenhouse or cool room so that they kick off in May and June.
• After filling pots and planters with bulbs for spring, try to make some interesting ones for winter colour and structure, maybe with dwarf box or heather.
• Build a leaf-mould container.
• Scoop leaves out of ponds, and remove dead leaves from marginal plants. A fine mesh plastic net over the pond is convenient.
• Scarify and aerate your lawn. It’s good to do a last ‘weed and feed’ to get rid of pernicious plants like plantain and thistle, giving the grass a chance to grow over the gaps before winter.
• If it is warm and the grass is still growing, keep mowing with the blades set quite high, 2″ or 5cm.

November

Hedging

• Leave your established evergreen hedges alone, apart from clipping box in December. But if you have just planted an evergreen hedge, try to protect it from the elements with a temporary netting windbreak.
• It’s the start of bareroot planting season for deciduous and evergreen trees & hedging, which lasts until spring in April or May, depending on your region and the weather.
• Prune out diseased or damaged branches in older deciduous hedges. Winter is the best time to hard prune a deciduous hedge, while it’s dormant. Remove about one third of an overgrown hedge at a time: our notes on renovating an old beech hedge apply to pretty much every deciduous hedge, and to yew.

Fruit Trees

• Check that stakes are sound and firm in the ground, and that tree ties are not tight against the bark. Replace ties that are worn or perishing.
• If there is evidence of scab, rake up leaves and burn them or bin them.
• Any frost free day between now and February is ideal to prune fruit trees with pips, but not with stones, which are at risk of silver leaf disease when pruned outside the growing season.
• If you did not do so last month, put grease or grease bands around your fruit trees.
• Plant new fruit trees between now and the end of winter.

Garden Trees

• November to the end of February are the best planting months.
• Rake leaves off lawns and borders.
• Small trees or shrubs, especially if newly planted and sited somewhere windy, benefit from winter shelter like our horticultural fleece tubes.

Roses

• It’s the start of the bare root rose planting season, so prepare your new rose bed.
• If you are planting a new rose in a site that contained roses before, you must change the soil to prevent ‘replant sickness’.
• Check that climbing roses are tied in to their support structures.
• If you did not do so last month, cut the bigger bush roses back by about a third. You are not pruning them properly, only reducing their windage.

Soft Fruit

• Lift and divide overcrowded rhubarb crowns. Plant new ones before the end of January.
• When planting blackcurrants, place the crown of the plant 10cm below soil level, then cut the stems to 10cm above the soil to encourage strong shoots.
• Prune your currants if you haven’t yet: blackcurrants are pruned differently from red & whitecurrants.
• Prune gooseberries.

Climbers

• Keep planting container grown climbing plants. Trim long, stray whippy stems off of established climbers, or tie them into a gap in the framework.
• Prune clematis in pruning group 3 (which you normally prune close to the ground in spring) at the end of November if you like.

Bulbs

• Most of your spring bulbs should be in by now, but tulips will still flower if you plant them this month; some of older gardening books recommend November as the best time to plant them.
• You could pot up some Amaryllis bulbs ready to flower for the festive season. Put them on a radiator or in the airing cupboard to start them off, and keep checking on them! They grow fast, and their compost needs to be kept moist.

Olive and Bay

• If you keep their potting soil dry-ish, barely damp, olives will be fine in temperatures down to about -10C.
• Until Bay has been outside for a couple of winters, it should be protected from freezing winds and sharp frosts with fleece, or move it to a sheltered spot.
• Raise containers by placing something underneath so they do not get waterlogged.

Nature

• Leave out food and water for the birds. Berried plants such as Berberis, Hawthorn, Holly, Pyracantha and the Rowans (Sorbus aucuparia varieties) come into their own as a food source.
• Make a pile of logs, branches and leaves for hibernating wildlife.

Other

• Protect non-frost-proof pots with hessian, fleece, bubble wrap, etc. Even if the potted plant is hardy, its roots may not be.
• Check tubers like dahlias or bulbs / corms like gladioli that you lifted earlier to make sure that none are beginning to rot. Keep them dry and frost free.
• Try not to walk over and crush your frosted lawn. Choose a dry day to rake off leaves. Get your lawn mower serviced before the spring rush.
• Wash and disinfect seed trays, pots, canes, and other gardening paraphernalia with Jeyes fluid. Clean greenhouse and cold frame glass, and if you are over-wintering tender plants in your greenhouse check that the heater is working and/or insulate the greenhouse with bubble wrap.

December

Hedging

• Think about dividing your garden to create “rooms” and areas of special interest. Perhaps your existing hedges could be more bird friendly by including berried plants like Guelder Rose, or Prunus cerasifera.
• Plant bare root deciduous hedges through the winter.
• Put up temporary windbreaks for new evergreen hedges.
• Before the hard frosts, it’s a good time to drastically reduce the size of a deciduous hedge. Sharpen secateurs and loppers.

Fruit Trees

• Until the ground is frozen, you can plant bareroot fruit trees.
• Any frost free day between now and February is an ideal time to prune fruit trees with pips not stones, i.e. apples, pears, figs etc, but not the Prunus family.
• After you have pruned your fruit trees, you can shred the prunings for your compost.
• Train fruit trees growing against a wall.
• Use a winter wash to destroy overwintering eggs of pests.

Garden Trees

• Prune dormant deciduous trees.
• Brush snow off with an upward motion.
• Protect some holly berries from birds for decoration.
• Cornus sibirica’s red stems work well in Christmas wreaths or arranged with sprayed pine cones. Cut up to a third of the stems now, and finish pruning in March.

Roses

• Until the heavy frosts arrive, you can plant bare root roses.
• Check that climbing roses are still tied in to their support structures.
• Prune bush roses to reduce their height so that they cannot be blown around by the wind.

Soft Fruit

• December is probably the best time to prune grape vines if you have not done so already. Prune them hard by cutting the laterals back to 2-3 buds.
• Prune your blackcurrants and red & whitecurrants if you haven’t already.

Climbers

• Check that all the stray, wispy bits that climbers tend to produce remain tied in.
• Brush snow off your climbers to prevent damage, always with an upward motion.

Bulbs

• Bring Christmas bulbs inside to force them to flower.

Olive and Bay

• Before the temperature plummets, move your pots to a frost free place, or wrap them with fleece.

Other

• Ceramic pots are vulnerable to frost damage. Keep them indoors if you can.
• Tidy greenhouse plants, removing dead material. Keep glasshouse doors open for a few hours at noon on mild days.
• Avoid walking over wet or frosted lawns. If you have to go back and forth, especially with a wheelbarrow, put planks down.
• Water features are likely to freeze at night, so ensure birds can get a drink, and invest in a heater for smaller ponds.
• Enjoy the winter scents of Viburnum Bodnantense Dawn, Lonicera purpussii, the Daphnes odora marginata or bholua, Skimmias, Sarcococca; Jasminum nudiflorum is odourless but still welcome shock of colour.