September Hints and Tips
September 2023
Now is a good time to look around your garden, taking photographs to remind you of both the triumphs and the disasters; for example, the Crocosmias and Echinops in my herbaceous border fell over in July and crushed all beneath, so I need to move them in October to somewhere less shady (or give more support!).
The year is far from over and chrysanthemums, asters and dahlias will go on flowering so long as you feed and dead-head them. Beans, sweetcorn and main potatoes can be harvested, but leave pumpkins and squashes on the plant to ripen.
I grow Autumn raspberries which go on cropping into October and, of course, apples and pears can be harvested and stored somewhere cool and frost-free as soon as they pick easily when you lift and turn.
I am going to take cuttings of my favourite fuchsias, pelargoniums and penstemons to overwinter under cover. If I lifted the whole plants, there would be no room in the house or greenhouse! Collect seeds from other plants and dry them before storing in labelled paper envelopes (or swapping with friends).
September is also a time to start planting – daffodils need to go in now but tulips can wait until November.
Onions and shallots can be planted for overwintering.
Don’t forget to protect Brassicas from pigeons!
July and August 2023 Hints and tips
As I write this in June, my garden is very dry. No rain for weeks.
Hoeing is a sure way to make it rain! – that, and cleaning the windows!
Still, the herbaceous border should be at its best – take a record of which plants need to be divided in the Autumn.
Currants, berries, potatoes, onions, peas and beans should be ready for picking and storing.
When garlic leaves turn yellow, lift the bulbs and dry in a single layer in a dry place.
Sow seeds for autumn and winter salads.
Here is an Erigeron still standing. It is popular with the bees.
This is a popular plant with bees – Echinops ritro ‘Veitch’s Blue’
Clip, snip and cut
- Early summer flowering shrubs like Philadelphus: cut back flowered stems to a strong lower shoot and remove one fifth of the old woody stems.
- Clip privet, box, yew, cypress and other ‘hedgy’ plants now the birds have finished nesting in them.
- Cut long whippy shoots of Wisteria to 7 leaves from the main stem.
- Prune out flowered stems of rambling roses; thin out the vigorous new growth and tie it in.
- Summer-prune cordon or espalier apples and pears
- Cut non-flowering side branches of grape vines to 5 leaves and fruit- bearing branches to 2 leaves beyond the fruit bunch.
- Cut back hardy geraniums to the ground after the first flush of flowers to get fresh foliage and more flowers later on.
- Dead-heading keeps perennials and bedding plants flowering for longer.
- In August, trim lavender, leaving an inch (2.5cm) of new growth
Propagate
- Take semi-ripe cuttings from shrubs – use the current season’s growth, cut below a node, remove the soft tips and place in gritty compost.
- Divide bearded irises and plant the young rhizomes 12inches(30cm) apart.
- Use strawberry runners to supply new plants for next year
- Collect seeds from perennials and hardy annuals as they ripen; store in paper envelopes (labelled!) in a cool dry place until spring
For your diary
July 15th is the time for the Dogmersfield Show
Church Crookham Garden Society has its annual show on 19th August . Entry is free for members (£5 p.a) and associate members. You can find the schedule on their website or at the trading shed.
Gardens open for charity
1st and 2nd July: 26 Lower Newport Road, Aldershot GU12 4QD
Hook Cross Allotments RG27 9DB
9th and10th July: 1 Wogbarne Cottages, Rotherwick RG27 9BL
27th August: Thatched Cottage, Alton GU34 3EG
For more gardens open for charity, visit ngs.org.uk
Hints and tips for June 2023
Talk about blowing hot and cold! Spring 2023 has been so changeable, that it has made planning crops or splitting clumps of perennials very difficult to do successfully.
In spite of last Summer’s drought, rhododendrons and azaleas are performing well in my garden, apart from the victims of salty spray from the road during the snow.
There are still jobs that must be done in hope of kind weather continuing… here are some suggestions:
Ornamental garden
- Gently remove spent flowers from Camellia and rhododendrons to make room for the leaf buds emerging behind. You can also trim back overgrown shoots to make the shrubs more compact, next year’s flower buds will form on the new growth of side shoots that this stimulates.
- Divide bearded irises after flowering; plant with the rhizomes facing south.
- Sow biennials like sweet William, viola and wallflowers
- Divide spring-flowering bulbs.
- Remove spent flower heads of Euphorbia by cutting flowered stems to ground level. Wear gloves for this, the sap causes skin irritation.
Lawns
- Mow regularly but, if it is hot and dry, raise the cutting height.
- Apply a high-nitrogen lawn feed (again not when dry)
- Add clippings to the compost heap in small amounts; mix them with dry material to stop it all going slimy.
Kitchen garden
April hints and Tips
2023
April is the month that inspires optimism in gardeners, I think. Plants that have been dormant for months start to show new growth, seeds are germinating and the risk of frost is minimal.
Some of the most spectacular shrubs put on their show in April, including magnolias, azaleas, rhododendrons and Forsythia – they will all need dead heading next month!
Magnolia at Exbury Garden
Ornamental garden
- The main risk of frost is past, so you can direct sow sweet peas and plant out Dahlias, Cannas, Gladioli, lilies and Nerines.
- Prune Forsythia and Chaenomeles after flowering and, if you like the look of striking large leaves on your Cotinus (smoke bush), prune it hard back; you will not get any ‘smoke’ i.e. flowers, though.
- Dead head daffodils and tulips, but leave the foliage to feed the bulbs
- Trim back frost-damaged evergreen foliage and renovate broadleaved evergreens like Pittosporum, Photinia, Hebe, Fatsia and It is a good time to plant new evergreen shrubs
- It is safe now to cut down the old stems of Gaura, Penstemon and Verbena bonariensis.
- Remove old foliage from Pulmonaria (lung wort) at flowering time to make room for new, more decorative leaves that will develop.
- Direct sow sunflowers, poached egg plants, California poppies and pot marigolds.
- Apply weed & feed to lawns on a day when the leaves are dry but rain is expected
Kitchen Garden
- Keep planting potatoes and keep sowing beetroot, carrots, lettuce, radish, turnip, peas, spinach and parsnips. Sow brassicas into a seed-bed or pots.
- Sow sweet corn, courgettes and beans indoors; wait until May to sow them direct.
- Prune young plum and cherry trees as leaf buds open.
- Open doors and vents of greenhouses during the day to prevent overheating.
March 2023 Hints and Tips
2023
What a winter for frost! My greenhouse and garden have been devastated; many plants (old friends) have perished. Still, I should see it as an opportunity to plant different things.
March is one of the busiest months for gardeners. The days are getting longer and the soil starts to warm, but you still have to watch out for frosts. Underground, the infra-red light that penetrates below the surface triggers growth and germination.
Jobs to do
- All beds need a mulch, both to retain moisture and to suppress those annoying annual weeds that need light to germinate.
- Remove the top 1 to 2 inches of old compost from permanent pot plants and top-dress with fresh. The old compost could be used as mulch.
- Sow bedding plants under glass.
In the ornamental garden
- Dead head spent daffodils – but leave the leaves to nourish the bulbs.
- Cut back Cornus, grown for their coloured stems, to 2-3 inches from the base because new growth has the best colour next winter. If that makes you nervous, cut a third of last year’s growth back and leave the rest until next year.
- Cut down perennial grasses to make room for new growth.
- Prune bush and standard roses and feed
- Prune last season’s growth of Hydrangea panniculata to the lowest pair of strong buds – they flower on this year’s growth; but prune mop-head hydrangeas by removing dead heads back to the next pair of strong buds – they flower on last year’s growth; cut out a third of old growth at the base to encourage more stems to grow for next year’s flowers.
- Prune Buddleia to a low framework; this will encourage the new growth that bears the flowers (see below)
Buddleia before pruning
Buddleia after pruning
February Hints and Tips
Welcome to the start of the growing year, when seeds can be sown, potatoes prepared by chitting and the first flowers: crocuses, daffodils, snowdrops, primroses, winter aconites and pulmonarias show some colour.
February involves pruning many late flowering shrubs to encourage new flowering shoots, for example:
A useful tip for Wisteria – 7 & 2. In the 7th month prune back new growth to 7 buds and in the 2nd month (now) prune these shoots back to 2 buds; you can also cut out some tangled old wood.
Winter jasmine can be cut back after flowers have faded to 5cm/2” from a main stem.
Late-flowering clematis can be cut down to a strong pair of buds about 30cm/12” from the ground. This will stimulate the new growth that bears the flowers.
Hydrangeas: leave mophead hydrangeas until March before dead-heading; they flower on last year’s growth, but prune Hydrangea paniculata to an open framework now because they flower on current season’s growth.
Bush roses can be encouraged by pruning back to outward facing buds late in the month.
Fuchsias should be cut hard back to 15cm/6” and Santolina and Lavatera to low, well-placed branches.
Buddleia can be cut back to a low framework at the end of the month (too early, and the new growth thus encouraged will be damaged by frost).
After pruning, a top-dressing of compost or general fertiliser should be applied.
Sowing seeds
Under cover, sow tomatoes, lettuce, sweet-peas, chillies and peppers.
Under cloches, broad beans, cabbages, parsnips, beetroot.
Plant shallot sets and garlic cloves, if you did not do so in the Autumn.
Tidy up
Cut down the top growth of herbaceous perennials and ornamental grasses to make room for new shoots.
Fruit
Feed your fruit bushes and trees with a high potash or general fertiliser.
Autumn-fruiting raspberry canes can be cut to the ground and summer-fruiting canes thinned out.
Did you know ?
National Nest-box Week starts on 14th February – house your garden birds!
January Gardening Tips
On the last day of December 2021, on a quick stroll round my garden, I found that even in the ‘deep mid-winter’ there are flowers to appreciate:- witch hazels, both red and yellow unfurling their petals, Iris unguicularis adding their beautiful blue flowers, winter jasmine giving a lovely yellow sheen to the wall outside the front door, and, surprisingly, some left overs from Autumn – a honeysuckle! Crocus and daffodil leaves are pushing through the soil and snowdrops are nearly in flower.
- Start pruning Wisteria: cut back the last season’s growth to 2-3 buds of the older wood
- Hard prune bush roses since flowers are produced on the new season’s growth. Cut them back to a strong outward facing bud and remove dead and crossing branches.
- Shake snow off evergreen shrubs to prevent damage to branches and ‘scorching’ of foliage.
- Feed apple trees in late winter with ‘growmore’ or other suitable fertiliser, compost or manure by sprinkling over the area just beyond the branch canopy. Dessert apples need more potassium, cookers more nitrogen, I am told.
- Once your Christmas hippeastrum/amaryllis has finished flowering, feed it fortnightly to build up the bulb. Cyclamen benefit from the same treatment.
- Start chitting early potatoes in trays in a cool, light, frost-free location.
- Sow begonia, lobelia, salvia and pelargonium in a heated propagator.
- Enjoy witch-hazels, snowdrops, winter aconites, hellebores, and Iris unguicularis (stilosa) (pictured below). It is worth cutting back the foliage of the last two to see the flowers better.
Wishing you a happy and productive 2022.
October Hints and Tips
Here we are, at the beginning of Autumn, the roar of leaf blowers filling the air! I do hope those leaves will be composted to make leaf mould!
Spring 2024 : Church Crookham and Fleet Garden Society, Trading Hut News
The trading hut (fully re-stocked) will be open on Saturdays, 2024, 10am -11.30am – until October 2024
Why not drop in for a chat Saturday mornings and view the range of young plants on sale by members?
Trading Hut, Church Crookham Memorial Hall, Sandy Lane, GU52 8LD, (near the Wyvern pub).
Click here to view/download July 2023 Shed Price List
Most of the harvesting is done: potatoes lifted and stored cool and dark in hessian sacks, apples stored in newspaper on trays, carrots and beetroot are more difficult, but will not stand frost – why not pickle the beetroot? Pumpkins and squash can be stored in a shed or garage once they sound hollow when you tap them.
Now let us start on next year’s produce, by sowing broad beans, planting overwintering onions and shallots, and sowing sweet pea seeds in a cold frame or unheated greenhouse. Plant Spring bulbs (except tulips, leave them until November to reduce the risk of ‘tulip fire’)
Now is the time to divide herbaceous perennials, move small shrubs and plant bare-rooted young trees (these will need firm support)
It is tempting to tidy all top growth of plants once they finish flowering:
Autumn Colour
DO rake up and dispose of diseased leaves from below roses and apple trees;
DO cut out fruited branches of blackberries and their relations so you can tie in new growth.
DO reduce the height of Buddleias, Lavatera and Sambuca to reduce wind rock and snow damage BUT LEAVE the main pruning until March. Most herbaceous plants can be cut down, but some have seed heads useful to birds.
DON’T cut down Penstemons, Gaura or hardy Fuchsias until late Spring to protect the plant from frost; similarly, leave Hydrangea flowers on the bush until March to protect next year’s flower buds.
Hints and Tips for September
Autumn is early here this year. Leaves dropping, berries ripening and apples ready to pick in August. Although the apple crop is heavy this year, potatoes, beans and sweetcorn have not flourished for me in dry, hot conditions.
There are still the asters, chrysanthemums and Hederanthas (Schizostolis) to come into their own in September and October, I hope, but the late summer perennials like phlox and Crocosmia are giving up.
Here are some jobs you could do:
Harvest: Onions, main crop potatoes, sweetcorn, pumpkins and squashes. Apples and pears will mostly have been picked at the end of August this year. All apart from sweetcorn can be stored in a dark dry place. Sweetcorn cobs freeze well.
Autumn fruiting raspberries and beans will continue to need picking or they will stop producing more.
Collect seeds to share or keep for next year; store them in labelled paper bags or envelopes somewhere cool and dry. The garden Society runs a seed swap at their Spring Show and at the trading shed later.
Plant: daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths and Muscari (wait until November for tulips); start to plant overwintering onions and shallots
Divide: herbaceous perennials that are overcrowded.
Take cuttings: of tender perennials like Fuchsia, Pelargonium, Salvias and penstemons and overwinter under cover.
Cut down: fruited canes of berries and tie in the new growth.
Lawns: scarify, aerate, top-dress and feed with a low nitrogen fertiliser …. or grow a wild flower meadow instead!
Church Crookham & Fleet Garden Society, Latest
Dead-heading: One wants to tidy things up at this time of year, but hydrangeas need their dead flower heads to protect next year’s buds; many other seed heads are a valuable resource for wildlife and the foliage is home for many invertebrates over winter. Wildlife does not like tidy!
Most important: Find time to enjoy your garden and perhaps visit someone else’s for ideas.
Store apples on racks somewhere dark and dry.
Dates for your diary – open gardens for NGS
4th September: Bramdean House, Alresford SO24 0JU
4th September: Blounce House, Blounce, South Warnborough RG29 1RX
7th October 7.30pm: Church Crookham Garden Society Harvest Supper at the Willis Hall, Sandy Lane, Church Crookham
Hints and Tips for July – August 2022
Liz Kirton writes:
Gardening is a hobby that can bring great joy! In June I have seen a wonderful display of irises, rambling roses and poppies – beautiful! BUT I have been much saddened by disease in the onion bed and box moth destroying my 20 year old box hedges.
Looking forward to July, the herbaceous border should be at its best – take a record of which plants need to be divided in the Autumn.
Currants, berries, potatoes, onions, peas and beans should be ready for picking and storing.
When garlic leaves turn yellow, lift the bulbs and dry in a single layer in a dry place.
This is a popular plant with bees – Echinops ritro ‘Veitch’s Blue’
Clip, snip and cut
- Early summer flowering shrubs like Philadelphus: cut back flowered stems to a strong lower shoot and remove one fifth of the old woody stems.
- Clip privet, box, yew, cypress and other ‘hedgy’ plants now the birds have finished nesting in them.
- Cut long whippy shoots of Wisteria to 7 leaves from the main stem.
- Prune out flowered stems of rambling roses; thin out the vigorous new growth and tie it in.
- Summer-prune cordon or espalier apples and pears
- Cut non-flowering side branches of grape vines to 5 leaves and fruit- bearing branches to 2 leaves beyond the fruit bunch.
- Cut back hardy geraniums to the ground after the first flush of flowers to get fresh foliage and more flowers later on.
- In August, trim lavender, leaving an inch (2.5cm) of new growth
Propagate
- Take semi-ripe cuttings from shrubs – use the current season’s growth, cut below a node, remove the soft tips and place in gritty compost.
- Divide bearded irises and plant the young rhizomes 12inches(30cm) apart.
- Use strawberry runners to supply new plants for next year
- Collect seeds from perennials and hardy annuals as they ripen; store in paper envelopes (labelled!) in a cool dry place until spring
Church Crookham Garden Society has its annual show on 20th August. Entry is free for members (£5 p.a) and associate members. You can find the schedule on their website or at the trading shed.
Gardens open for charity
10th and 11th July, 1 Wogbarne Cottages, Rotherwick RG27 9BL
16th and 17th July Hook Cross Allotments, Reading Rd, Hook RG27 9DB
2nd , 3rd & 8th August ‘Selborne’, Caker Lane, East Worldham Alton GU34 3AE, combined with East Worldham Manor
For more gardens open for charity, visit ngs.org.uk or www.pth.org.uk/open-gardens-2022
Tel: 07801 714662 
Email: alecjgrant@icloud.com