October is a month to make the most of the late summer garden, before autumn really kicks in and things start to fade. It’s also a great time to start thinking ahead – preparing for autumn, winter, and even spring in the garden.
Here’s a few jobs for your to-do list this month:
Continue planting spring bulbs and autumn/winter planters
Plant anemone bulbs in October for lovely colour next year.
There’s still time to get in your daffodils, crocus, iris, muscari and more. I’ve usually do a lot of bulb planting in September but still have loads to do, so that’s a definite October job for me. As well as the spring bulbs I’ll also be planting allium and anemones, too.
Get ready to overwinter your tender perennials
If you want to guarantee your dahlias will return next year, you need to take action now.
Dahlias will carry on flowering until the first frosts – which will kill them straight away. But they’re not ‘dead – their tubers can now be dug up and kept frost free over the winter to be replanted next year. I usually cut back all the foliage once the frosts have come, dig up the tuber and put it in the shed wrapped in fleece to dry. Once it is dry – in a week or so – you can store it in some dry, spent compost, or wrap thoroughly in fleece – and forget about it until spring. You can do something similar with Begonia tubers and Gladioli corns. Of course – if we get a mild winter – these tubers may survive left in the ground, with a generous covering of mulch. So if digging up and storing isn’t possible you can leave them and hope for the best – but there’s no guarantees!
There are other plants in your garden that can live to bloom another summer – but they’ll need some help surviving the colder weather. They include some kinds of geraniums, fuchsias and gazanias.
Pull up and store your Gladioli
My gladioli finished flowering a few weeks ago, so now I pull them out of the ground and get ready to store them for winter.
You could take a risk and leave gladioli in the ground, as they are semi-hardy, but if there’s a really harsh winter they may not survive, so I choose to lift and store them just in case.
It’s actually easy to do – just carefully pull the plants out of the ground, being careful not to damage the corm (bulb). Cut off the foliage and leave the corm somewhere to dry out for about 2-3 weeks. Once dry, carefully brush off all the soil and you’ll notice that each corm is actually two corms – one on top of the other (one is a ‘wrinkly’ older corm and one is a new corm, which is the one which will give you flowers next year). You may also find lots of little ‘cormletts’ too. Carefully break them apart from each other, discarding the wrinkly corm and carefully storing the new corms and cormletts (I put them in a tray, not touching each other, and wrapped in newspaper to protect them from the cold). I then store them in the garage over winter.
Once next summer comes, you can bring them out of hibernation and plant them back up for fresh new flowers. I like to plant mine out successionally over a period of a few weeks, in order to get flowers at different times, too.
Your little cormletts can also be planted out next year – however, it may take a couple of years for them to actually flower… they will usually produce leaf only in the first and maybe second years, but eventually you’ll have loads of lovely new gladioli plants, for free!
Pot up some Christmas indoor bulbs
If you want an amaryllis for Christmas, this is the month to do it. You can also put prepared daffodil bulbs in pots and look forward to them flowering in about 10 weeks’ time.
Have a good tidy up of the garden
Before: The patio was looking in a sorry state and was in danger of becoming really slippery over winter.
In October, there’s loads of tidying up to be done in the garden. Every weekend we seem to be busy cutting back lots of foliage from plants that are now past their best. It’s a time of year when I appreciate the bin men who collect all that green waste even more!
By this time of year, our garden patio is always looking less than its best. And if left it’s liable to become slippery over winter as well as looking horrible. So it’s time for a jetwashing session!
If you don’t have a jetwash, or don’t fancy doing it yourself, there are several companies in our Local Directory that can do it for you, so take a look.
If you have a greenhouse, it’s also a good idea to give this a good clean down around this time. You should also rake up fallen leaves – and these can be stored in bin bags to rot down for leafmould, if you wish. Now is also a good time to give your lawn a good feed and you can even put down some grass seed if you have patches to fill.
You can also support some of our creepy crawlie friends by creating log or twig piles which will be perfect for them to take shelter in over winter.
Mulch, mulch, mulch
If you’re removing faded annuals and digging up perennials to overwinter, your borders will be looking a little more bare this month. Once you’ve tidied them apply a generous amount of mulch – simply this means something like bark chips, well rotted manure, leaf mould or spent mushroom compost. You can even add spent compost from containers. This will help insulate the roots of the plants which remain against the winter cold and will prevent excessive weed growth.
It’s a good time to plant trees, too
Autumn is the ideal time to plant new trees, or shrubs – or to move existing ones, if you need to. A good time for a little re-jig!
Cut down autumn fruiting raspberries
We have a raspberry ‘polka’ plant which is slightly hidden away in the back of one of our borders. It’s had lots of fruit this year, even though the leaves have been almost completely shredded by some kind of pest. Once it finishes fruiting, I’ll cut it right back to the ground. It should return and re-grow next year without much attention from me. Usually it pops back up along with several self-seeded new plants too!
Growing pumpkins or squashes?
Make sure you harvest them before the first frosts – otherwise you run the risk that they turn mushy and horrible.
In need of some help in your garden?
Check out the local gardening companies we have listed in our Local Directory for Newton-le-Willows if you need help in the garden – from mowing the lawn to total landscaping projects.
About the author:
My name is Gemma. I’m the editor of Newton-le-Willows News and a very keen but amateur gardener. I mainly enjoy gorwing flowers in my garden in Golborne, as well as a little bit of growing my own in raised beds. You can follow my garden on Instagram @gandtgarden.
Get Newton-le-Willows news updates by email
Don’t miss out on local information that you need. Sign up below.
Did you know? You can find local businesses in our Newton-le-Willows Local Directory
Next time you need a trader, cake baker, hairdresser or accountant, use our Local Directory to choose to support a small, local business first. Take a look at all the businesses we have listed.