Winding Down for Autumn Wendy Simpson of Craigievar Gardeners offers seasonal tips to help you get the best from your patch, large or small... The late summer vibrancy of crocosmia, rudbeckia and dahlia displays prompts us to think about the impending autumn and how we can prepare our gardens for shorter days and a falling thermometer. It’s time to tidy herbaceous borders. Cut down perennials as they die back to remove rotting foliage. You can leave attractive seedheads in place as bird food or you can collect your own seed by putting stems upside down into paper bags so that the seeds collect in the bag. Similarly, clear your vegetable beds of all spent plants. Cut pea and bean plants off at ground level because their roots help to fix nitrogen in the soil, which will benefit next year’s crops. Compost all debris unless it is diseased. Clearing your beds and borders now gives you more space to apply a layer of mulch to replenish the nutrients in the soil and insulate roots. In early autumn, apply an autumn fertiliser to support your lawn through the winter. Autumn fertilisers have low nitrogen and high potassium content and are intended to support the grass’s resistance to frost rather than to encourage growth. It’s important not to use a highnitrogen (summer) fertiliser because this will encourage too much growth. Make sure you keep your lawn clear of fallen leaves because these will deprive it of light. Raise the height of your mower to allow the lawn to grow slightly longer because this enables the grass to make better use of decreasing hours of sunlight. Think about your spring and summer bulb displays and order your bulbs now with a view to planting in October.
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