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Wednesday 3 September 2014

This Month in your Garden – September

A new canvas for next year


And so we mellow into autumn of which Edwin Teale said: For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together. For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad.

There are of course still lovely flowers in bloom, colours and textures to take us into the next season, a new canvas we can create with shrubs, climbers, hardy perennials, pot-grown trees and spring bulbs we can plant.

Evergreen hedges can be planted and it’s time to take cuttings of bedding plants before the first frosts. Tender perennials need preparing, cuttings of these to be taken to over-winter for next year.


It’s time to dig over borders but note how plants have spread and where new planting can be done with new herbaceous plants to complement old ones you lift and divide. Check first which plants thrive on being divided every year and those that prefer to stay as they are a while longer.

If you are starting a new lawn and prepared for this then it’s time to get sowing. What about growing some roses from seed? You can take some rose hips and split them open. The seeds can be sown straight into pots of compost and a layer of grit, then pop them in a cold frame or greenhouse and wait for seedlings to appear. Or you can take rose cuttings for an earlier result.

September is a month packed with things to do in the garden from gathering seed to planting spring bulbs. Hold back on planting tulips until early November. Stand back for a moment and think about how you might want the garden to look next spring and summer and spend some time at the garden centre hunting down the special offers available. Below are just a few suggestions:

  • Pansies and violas cut back last month provide cuttings.
  • Sedum and achillea like to be divided every year
  • Leave dahlias until the first frost blackens them, then lift and store
  • Peonies prefer to stay where they are thank you
  • Take cuttings of calceolarias, penstemons, verbenas, zonal pelargoniums, antirrhinums, violets
  • Herbaceous plants for next September include Achillea, aconitum, cimicifuga, phygelius, polygonum, rudbeckias and schizostylis
  • Bulbs, corms and tubers produce Amaryllis, colchicums, crocosmias, crocus, cyclamen, leucojum and lilies





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