Blossoming, Vibrant Display Of Beauty
Autumn is an exciting time for gardeners as it’s the moment of the year where we start preparing our gardens for the colder months ahead; essentially setting the tone for our garden landscape designs for the rest of the year. The foundations we lay this season will hopefully come to fruition in the warmer months later next year and we can literally see the fruits of our labour. The soil is still warm enough for us to plant bulbs and seeds before it is too late. So use your time wisely, grab what you can from your vegetable patches and let’s get ourselves ready for the next wave.
However, it’s not all doom and gloom! Autumn is actually a great time of the year to be gardening because although the soil is still relatively warm from the summer months, it is also moist due to the increase of rainfall in the last few weeks. This makes it prime for bulbs and seeds.
1. Preparing and Protecting your Lawn
As fantastic as flower beds can be for your beautiful garden landscape; unfortunately it’s the lawn that covers the more square footage of your garden and therefore plays a large part in how your garden looks, regardless of how fantastic your flower beds may look.
In order to make sure that your lawn is ready for the autumn and coming winter months; make sure that the lawn is clear of any moss or obstruction that can stunt its growth. The grass will grow a lot slower in the autumn and winter months, but keeping it alive is paramount. The amount of sunlight that your garden landscape will get will be reduced so make sure that your lawn is getting the most out of it as it can. The autumn months is still a good time to lay down new turf as it’s the weather is still forgiving and it’ll be ready for the summer time as it lays down its roots over the less forgiving months that are yet to come.
2. Clearing Debris from flower beds and the lawn
Similar to the protecting of the lawn in the autumn months for your garden; clearing debris from both the lawn and flower beds is important to help keep them healthy throughout the tough months the lie ahead. Removing leaves from the lawn and flower bed help to increase the sunlight that reaches your plants; and this is especially important when sunlight is very limited in the autumn and winter. Removing fallen fruit from nearby trees is essential as it helps to reduce the spread of disease amongst plants. Although this may seem like a chore, preparing and clearing your flower beds and lawn will help beneficially impact your garden and it means that you can get straight to it when it comes to the treat of gardening in the Spring months. If anything, the removal of the debris can just help tidy things up in your autumnal garden and keep it well maintained.
3. Cleaning the windows of a Greenhouse
Essentially, the green house is a room of your house that is permanently exposed to the elements of the outdoors, so what is the point of cleaning it if it’s just going to get dirty again. Well, cleaning the windows both inside and out of the green house may actually help the plants within it survive. The dirt that builds up your windows may impact the amount of sunlight that gets to them as the dirt will actually block this. Cleaning them will prevent the blocking of sunlight, offering your plants sunlight and a little bit of extra warmth In the colder months.
4. Autumn Clean
Alongside the cleaning of the windows, it’s a great opportunity to also do a little bit of ‘autumn’ cleaning of the greenhouse. It helps to remove everything from your greenhouse temporarily, disinfecting any staging and plants to help reduce the occurrence of diseases. This further reduces the avenues in which your plants could struggle. Remove and sweep any plant debris as well. To help prevent pests and fungal infection, using a hot solution of disinfectant would do the trick. Also, as it’s still not too cold out, just keep the windows and doors open for a little while to help ventilate the greenhouse. Other than this, it probably is a good way of just keeping your greenhouse in order regardless, as over the course of the year; pots and debris start to build up so this can act as a nice refresh.
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5. Store Garden Furniture
Sigh. The Summer time is over and sadly the demand for the outdoor furniture to read your book in the warmth is slowly becoming out of reach. Therefore, instead of leaving your garden furniture out, this may be a good time to put away in order to protect it for the next year. The rain and the cold will damage it slowly and therefore covering it or even better, putting it away will help to keep it in good condition for the next year. Secondly, it may also free up a little space in your garden so that you have little more space to roam.
6. Tidy up Borders
It’s time to get our flower beds ready for next spring, but we may have to get our hands a little dirty. Now is the time to dig up any annuals and to replace them with daisies or pansies. This helps to make sure that you end up with a bold display when the time comes back around next spring. Make sure to back perennials to about 4-6cm above ground level, but don’t go down too low. Make sure to remove any dead leaves (See point 2 on clearing debris), old mulch and anything that just hasn’t aged well or just needs an update. Potentially cutting back on any tree shrubs to stop anything from overgrowing and eliminating disease.
Once that has been done, it’s time to protect. Spread a layer (preferably a thick layer) of compost, well-rotted manure or even bark chips over the top.
7. Leaf Moulds
Hmm, those pesky leaves just keep falling and you don’t know what to do with them other than to just put them in the garden waste? They are actually really useful and beneficial for your garden landscape and should be treated as such. The fallen leaves can actually add to the organic matter to the existing soil. So, what you can do is make a large mound of leaves, spray with water (maybe put them in a confined area like a large bin for now to keep it compact and together), sprinkle with water and leave.
Once the leaves give off a texture that is quite crumbly, you are now ready to use it as mulch. So, it could potentially save you a little a bit of money in the long run and give those leaves a little bit more of a purpose as opposed to being popped straight into the bin.
8. Garden Equipment
Now might be the best time to clean the garden equipment that you have been using for the last 6 months. Whether that is just checking or servicing your machinery such as lawn-mowers. Or just cleaning the mud off your utensils that you use for the finer parts of your large or small garden. This helps to preserve their life cycle so that you aren’t constantly having to go out and buy new ones every year. However, carefully look at sharpening shears as well so that’s another job you can do, forget about them for 6 months and get straight back into it when the spring comes along.
The Garden Builders are a professional Garden Design, Build and Landscaping services, based in London and offer award-winning designs and garden finishes for over 25 years. We are now looking to get started for 2023, so enquire today to get your garden looking rejuvenated before spring/summer 2023!
9. Clean out the ponds
Another job that has to be done but is surely worth your while is the ponds. Making sure that they stay healthy helps to promote life into your garden throughout the year. Sadly, sometimes the surface of the pond is covered by falling debris from the neighbouring trees and the algae starts to fester.
Removing this will help sunlight reach the bottom of the pond, helping the plants to photosynthesise at the bottom of the pond, helping to keep the pond full of life with the continuous flow of oxygen. Not doing so, sadly kills the pond through a process called Eutrophication where the algae essentially steals the show and everything below ceases to exists due to lack of sunlight.
The Garden Builders
The Garden Builders are a professional Garden Design, Build and Landscaping services, based in London and offer award-winning designs and garden finishes for over 25 years. We are now looking to get started for 2023, so enquire today to get your garden looking rejuvenated before spring/summer 2023!
