Gardening: Monty Don lays out ‘jobs for the weekend’

It the now the final countdown for the end of summer as September is fast approaching and the cool autumn weather will begin to set in.

While most gardeners are mourning the season of bright sunny weather and blooming flowers coming to an end, it is now an important time to prepare your gardening for the upcoming winter.

Any gardening jobs done in the autumn will not only keep your plants healthy and protected in the wintertime, but it is also a chance to plan out your garden for springtime, which will give you less work next year.

Sophie is a hobbyist gardener who has become popular online by sharing her best advice for keeping gardens looking good on her website TheCornishHome. On her TikTok account, Sophie explained the most essential autumn jobs to do in your garden after a fellow gardener wrote to her to confess they had “no clue” what to do.

In her video, Sophie said she had a “couple of suggestions” but said one “great” job gardeners should do now is prune back their lavender in order to keep it from becoming overgrown and misshapen in the upcoming cold weather. However, Sophie also had six other essential but “super simple” jobs to do for autumn that should be done now.

READ MORE: ‘Easiest’ gardening method to get hydrangeas to flower and bloom brightly

Weeding

For her first autumn job, Sophie said tidying up your garden by removing weeds and using them to start a compost bin would be the best use of your time as a gardener, as well-rotted manure over your soil will keep plants protected in the winter.

Sophie said: “First things first weeding. Pulling up, and pulling out all the crops that are finished, that are spent. That leads to composting if you haven’t already set up a compost heap if this is at the allotment or in your garden now is a great time to start.”

Deadheading and Filling Flower Beds 

Next, Sophie said it is important to “keep on top of” deadheading flowers still in blossom, in order to keep them healthy. Sophie said: “Deadheading keeps them flowering for longer.”

However, Sophie said it is important to keep your garden beds filled over the wintertime in order to keep your garden environmentally friendly.

Sophie said: “Once you’ve made a bit of space then you wanna fill it you really don’t want bare soil over winter. One, it’s boring and two, it’s not great for the environment …any bare soil means carbon goes up.”

Sophie said that you can fill any empty spaces in your garden with cold enduring crops such as onions and garlic. She said: “Onions will be on sale now, that’s easy to get. Garlic [will be on sale] next month.”

Buying Bulbs for Spring

Sophie said that buying bulbs will be a great task to do now as you can begin planning your Spring garden. She suggested making a “bulb lasagne pot” which is a gardening method of planting layers of bulbs in a pot that will become a magnificent display in the springtime.

She said: “Now is a great time to start your spring lasagnas, which if you don’t know what I’m on about with that, it’s basically layering your bulbs. It can be done in the ground it could be done in pots then you’re gonna wanna start thinking about what plants you’re gonna bring inside over winter

Protect Plants and Ponds

Sophie said now was the time to think about how to protect your favourite plants over winter, as they can easily be damaged by frost. It may be worth considering bringing

Sophie explained: “How are you gonna protect your sort of tender plants over winter? [You can] bring them inside you might be lifting bulbs using closhes, moving pots into a more sheltered area, and so on and so forth.”

However, Sophie that any gardener who owns a pond should consider buying a floating ball in order to make sure if does not freeze over completely.

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Make Leaf Mould 

Now is also the perfect time to prepare to make a leaf mould for your garden, which is a natural fertiliser that will give your garden a boost while also feeding plants

Sophie said: “It’s a lot of prep work for the winter coming another great thing you could be doing is collecting all your leaves and making leaf mould.”

In order to make a leaf mould, you will simply need either a lead cage or black bin bags and begin collecting dead leaves once they begin falling in the autumn.

Protect Garden Funiture 

One of the last jobs that Sophie suggests is protecting your garden furniture so make sure it does not rust or go mouldy in the cold weather.

Garden furniture should be given a deep clean before being put in storage over the winter. Giving wooden furniture a scrub with soapy water and then sanding it will rid it of any stains. It can also be treated with wood oil to give it a protective layer.

Sophie said: “If you have decking like I do one of the things you could be doing is getting all that green algae off before it becomes like a skating rink in the middle of winter.”

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