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September 2006 >>>
By the end of the month, autumn will be upon us. Longer nights and cooler days will gradually put paid to summer bedding and deciduous trees and shrubs will start to turn colour ready to drop their leaves. It's time to tidy up rose and flower beds, make the most of summer's fruit and vegetable harvest and prepare the lawn and garden for winter. Remember that autumn is nature's time for planting shrubs and trees. Buy and plant all new hardy material while soils are still warm and adequately moist.
THE ORNAMENTAL GARDEN
Before you start digging up bedding plants, make some notes on the successes and the failures in terms of plants and planting positions. Only you can decide which plants do well in your garden soil and the places where they thrive. Also try to remember how often watering was vital for survival or just beneficial. Unless you are a glutton for hard work and daily watering it's worth positioning plants in areas that suit them best and provide you with minimal watering. In hot sunny spots you need to place those plants such as geranium, mesembryanthemum, Californian poppy and verbena that survive without too much supplementary watering, while positioning busy lizzies, begonia, coleus and fuchsia, that tolerate a certain amount of shade, in cooler spots where the soil remains moist for longer.
Before October it's time to clear away summer bedding and start the planting of spring bulbs and winter bedding such as pansies, polyanthus, bellis and wallflowers. Before planting new material clear all remaining weeds with Weedol 2 or Weedol Gun! so that you have a clean start to winter.
Your garden shouldn't be lacking colour during the autumn months, especially if you have some Michaelmas daisies (Aster Novi-belgii) on display. There are plenty of varieties to choose from including white, carmine rose, blue, violet and purple. Most of these varieties are very prone to powdery mildew attack and spray treatments with either FungusClear or FungusClear Gun! every fortnight are the sensible way to prevent the disease from disfiguring the plant.
All soils will benefit from the addition of bulky organic matter in the autumn to increase the water-holding capacity of light soils and to open up drainage and the texture of heavy clay soils. Well-rotted home-made compost is good and so too are bags of Levington Soil Conditioner or Miracle-Gro Ecosense Soil Improver. A layer of organic matter about 8cm (3 inch) deep dug in every year will add substance to soil and allow you to grow bigger and better plants with a strong, healthy root system.
September is the ideal month for planting daffodils and narcissi. They start producing roots immediately after being planted in the soil and appreciate a long growing season. To ensure they have enough nutrients on which to draw, dress the soil surface with Miracle-Gro Bulb Booster. These patented granules release their high potassium nutrients slowly for up to 3 months. Extra nutrients will encourage vigorous root growth and lush foliage which is required to support more abundant flowering the following season. After planting your bulbs at the required depth, scatter the slow release granules over the soil surface and rake into the top 3cm (1 inch) of soil.
Plant out winter bedding plants, especially Universal pansies, bellis, polyanthus and primulas as soon as possible and water them in with a feed of Miracle-Gro All Purpose Plant Food. A feed immediately after planting and again a couple of weeks later will help these plants to produce a good roots system and encourage good flowering during mild autumn spells. These new plants may well be targeted by slugs and snails and a light sprinkling of SlugClear Advanced Pellets will provide good protection.
Give winter flowering heathers (Erica carnea) their last feed with Miracle-Gro Ericaceous Plant Food.
TOPICAL TIP
When the flower borders have been tidied up and fully planted add a mulch of Levington Decorative Chipped Forest Bark or Levington Constant Colour Mulch. These attractive and protective organic layers will hold in moisture, protect roots from severe frosts and reduce the amount of weed seed germination.
PATIO GARDENING
More and more people are planting up patio pots and containers for winter interest. There are plenty of variegated small shrubs available that provide interesting foliage colour throughout the winter and a host of different flowering plants such as polyanthus, bellis and pansies that add flowers to the proceedings whenever the weather is mild enough.
For a really useful display, plant spring bulbs in layers throughout the compost. For a really long flowering period start at depth with daffodils, topped with a layer of tulips and near the surface a mixture of crocus and snowdrops before adding your surface plants. Use Levington Multi-Purpose Compost as this contains a special wetting agent to help reduce the risk of waterlogging. To maximise the effectiveness of this agent and to ensure excess water drains away quickly add a few broken shards of pottery to keep the drain holes clear and use pot 'feet' to ensure drainage remains unimpeded.
Some plants that only give a useful display of perfumed flowers for a short time in winter are best grown in decorative pots which can then be moved to a strategic place close to the house when they are at their best. The winter box (Sarcococca) is an evergreen with dark green leaves and tiny white flowers that give off a strong perfume during the dark winter days of January and February. The witch hazel produces a spicy fragrance from its rich golden yellow flowers carried on its bare stems around Christmas and New Year. Both appreciate acid soils and need to be planted in pots of fresh Miracle-Gro Ericaceous Compost to ensure a long life.
Clear summer plants from hanging baskets and if you have a greenhouse, conservatory or other frost-free light place, pot up geraniums, fuchsias and other long lasting plants individually so they can be over-wintered somewhere in the warm.
TOPICAL TIP
Roses planted in pots are always susceptible to powdery mildew disease, especially towards the end of the growing season. Keep spraying with either RoseClear 3 or RoseClear Gun! to keep your roses healthy and thriving.
THE LAWN
Heavy wear and tear of children's ball games and the hot, dry summer may have left your lawn with dead bare patches. The rain showers of August have helped to bring lawns back to greenness, but many will still be showing damage. To help your lawn benefit from the rainfall it is important to spike over the bare patches so that the rain gets down deep to where the roots have survived.
Now is the time to repair these thin areas and bare patches by putting down some new grass seed so the whole lawn is thick, healthy and attractive for next spring. Re-turfing the whole area is one remedial option, but it's expensive. Simply sprinkling on grass seed is a slower alternative, but without feeding is not always successful.
The quick and easy way to transform worn out lawns is with one application of EverGreen Lawn Reviver. Rake the bare soil surfaces to provide a foothold for the new grass seed and mix the contents of the EverGreen Lawn Reviver pack. Sprinkle over the affected area at the recommended rate. Each handful will contain pre-mixed 'fast acting' grass seed and 'slow release' lawn feed that starts to green the existing grasses from only 7 days and more slowly thickens a worn-out lawn with new plants to fill in the gaps. All you have to do is see that the soil is moist until the seed is established. Seaweed extract is included in the mix to encourage better seed germination and bird repellent is used to discourage seed-eating birds. The slow release nutrients in the mix will continue to feed and thicken the lawn for up to 3 months as well as strengthen the new and existing grass plants.
Dead leaves left on the lawn for a few weeks will encourage bare patches and worm casts. That's why it is important to collect leaves at least once a week. Use a rake or if your mower picks them up continue to cut the grass. To turn these damaging leaves into valuable organic leaf mould, seal them in a plastic bag after wetting them with a special compost activator designed for leaves.
TOPICAL TIP
Keep mowing the grass even though growth rates will have reduced as days become cooler. A fortnightly cut will keep everything looking tidy and will encourage thickening of the lawn.
IN THE GREENHOUSE
Clear out tomatoes, cucumbers and aubergines when all fruit has finished ripening. These are almost sure to have whitefly infestations by this time of the year, so cut off stems at compost level and seal in a plastic bag ready for disposal at the local tip, or place in your local authority garden recycling bin, rather than on your own compost heap.
The contents of growing-bags that have finished should be used as organic soil improver in the garden where it should be dug into the top few inches of soil or mixed in with the contents of the compost heap.
TOPICAL TIP
Take cuttings of tender bedding plants such as heliotrope, verbenas and fuchsias placing prepared stems into small pots of Levington Seed & Cutting Compost.
THE VEGETABLE AND FRUIT GARDEN
Gather French and runner beans regularly and freeze excess. Watch out for late infestations of blackfly and spray as soon as the first signs are seen on the newer shoots. Use an insecticide that does not restrict harvesting of food crops such as BugClear, BugClear Gun! or Nature's Answer Natural Pest Control. All contain insecticides which allow the picking of food crops on the same day as treatment.
Maincrop potatoes should be dug during September, or at the latest, the beginning of October. The stems and foliage, called haulms, will turn brown and start to die off. Cut the stems at soil level, remove the haulms and leave for about 10 days for the skins to set. Then on a dry day dig out all the potatoes and leave on top of the soil for a few hours. Place them in hessian sacks or wooden boxes and store in a dark, frost-free shed ready to be used throughout the winter.
Break the roots of onions by gently lifting with a fork, leaving the bulbs to ripen and dry in the sun.
Sweetcorn plants should be producing succulent cobs which will benefit from weekly feeds with Miracle-Gro All Purpose Plant Food to encourage swelling. Test for ripeness when the silks turn a chocolate brown colour. When squeezed the kernels produce a clear liquid before ripeness and a milky liquid when ready. For maximum flavour, eat or freeze as soon as harvested.
Some apple varieties will be ready for harvest in September. Wait until the colour develops on the fruit and start to pick the ripest when the apple comes away from the tree easily. Test this by lifting the apple in the palm of the hand giving it a gentle twist. If it comes away with stalk attached then its ready. Pick the tree over a few weeks as the fruit ripens. First to be ready will be the fruit on the top of the tree followed by lower outside fruit and finally apples on the inside. Store only the sound, blemish-free fruit on trays, wrapping each in paper or special oiled wrapping.
Harvest blackberries, loganberries and autumn fruiting raspberries as the fruit ripens. A few feeds of dilute Miracle-Gro Ericaceous Plant Food will provide the necessary chelated iron and essential nutrients to encourage a strong crop.
TOPICAL TIP
For an early crop of onions next year sow seed of Japanese onions now or plant sets at the end of September. For a winter crop of carrots sow under cloches using a quick maturing variety such as Amsterdam Forcing or Early Nantes.
ALWAYS READ THE LABEL: USE PESTICIDES SAFELY
Information supplied by the Scotts Miracle Gro Company UK Ltd
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