15 garden tips for September

The days might be getting shorter but there’s still plenty to enjoy in your garden, with late-flowering plants and stunning autumn foliage setting the garden aglow with colour. It’s time to harvest the veg, tidy up the beds and start thinking ahead to next spring. Here are our top 15 gardening jobs for September.

Top 15 Gardening Tips for September

1. Strawberry plants will be sending out runners now (long stems with tufts of leaves). If you want extra plants, peg the runners down in the ground to root and grow, otherwise cut them off to conserve the plants’ energy.

2. Harvest the last of the maincrop potatoes. Cut off the foliage three weeks before you harvest, then dig up the potatoes and leave them to dry for a few hours before storing in paper bags or hessian sacks. 

3. Keep picking the last of the French and runner beans. Once the plants have finished, cut them down to ground level, so that the roots can release their stored nitrogen back into the soil.

4. Now’s the time to prune summer raspberries, cutting back the fruited canes down to ground level and tying in this year’s new canes to supports for next year’s crop. 

5. Plums, pears and apples should all be ready to harvest now, as well as blackberries and autumn raspberries.

6. Sow poppies, nigella, cornflower and other hardy annuals now for a fantastic display of flowers next summer.

7. Keep deadheading dahlias, roses and penstemons for a last flush of flowers. 

8. Cut back geraniums and other perennials as they fade. Now’s also a good time to lift and divide overgrown clumps of perennials like hardy geraniums, hostas and salvias.

9. Plant daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, bluebells and other spring bulbs, except tulips which are better planted in November when the weather is colder to reduce the risk of viruses. 

10. As the grass starts to slow down, mow lawns less often and on a higher blade setting. Keep your lawn healthy by scarifying, aerating and feeding with an autumn lawn feed high in potassium.  

11. Pumpkins are starting to ripen now, so remove leaves to give them as much sun as possible. Put a slate tile under the fruits to keep them off damp ground.

12. Water camellias and rhododendrons regularly now while they are developing next year’s flower buds. 

13. Protect brassicas like cabbage or kale from pigeons by covering them with netting stretched over canes. Peg the netting down tightly to stop birds getting their feet tangled in it.

14. Remove the shading from greenhouses as light levels drop. 

15. Raise pots on pot feet to stop them getting waterlogged and frozen over winter.

Whether you’re planting, picking or cutting back, you’ll find everything you need in our centres. Visit us today and let us help you get your garden looking great this autumn.