Garden Jobs for September

Making the most of the last of the Summer warmth.

This is the time to enjoy the flowers from late perennials such as sedums, Japanese anemones and asters. You are hopefully busy reaping the rewards from your harvest from you fruit or vegetable patch. It’s also time to get out and start planting spring-flowering bulbs for next year. Make the most of the remaining
warmth while you can!

Jobs for the garden

1. Lift and divide congested clumps of herbaceous perennials.
   Plant spring-flowering bulbs such as snowdrops and daffodils
   Mow the lawn, rake and mow again. Aerate with a machine if you can. Mend
   broken edges and reseed bald patches. Dose with low-nitrogen feed, then top-
   dress.
2. Remove spent summer annuals and replace with spring bedding wallflowers
   and winter pansies.
3. Prune and remove the last of the rose flowers. Prune climbing roses when
   they’ve finished flowering, removing dead, damaged and diseased stems.
4. Net ponds before leaf fall gets underway.
5. Carry out autumn lawn maintenance, including aerating, scarifying, top dressing and feeding. Reseed bare patches, and create new lawn from seed.
6. Harvest sweetcorn when the tassels turn brown. Dig up remaining maincrop
   potatoes. Store in a hessian sack with some slug pellets. Root vegetables are
   keep best in sharp sand.
7. Plant garlic, winter lettuce, turnips, spring cabbages and autumn onion sets in
   the vegetable garden.
8. Begin moving tender plants into sheltered positions or into the greenhouse or
   conservatory.
   

Plant of the Month – Anemone japonica

Keep life and light in the garden for the darkening nights of autumn with the Japanese Anemone. As the summer garden plants wind down, the Japanese Anemone blooms reliably from August through October, in sun or shade. Stunning shades of pink and white flowers are produced en masse. Growing to around 90-120cm, this perennial is ideal for the middle or back of border show where it will serve as a long-lasting addition to the summer border plants. Favourite varieties include Queen Charlotte (pink), Honorine Jobert(white) and September Charm (rosy pink) and ‘Pamina’ (double pink).

Adapted from an original Bee Local article by Gill Gallon

You can also read the latest garden page in Bee Local print magazine here