Buy autumn bulbs
You can’t beat spring-flowering bulbs for a splash of colour and now’s the time to plant them. Buy early to ensure the best choices from our extensive range – there’s something for everyone. To get the best from your bulbs, plant with compost, well-rotted manure or composted bark and a slow-release or controlled-release fertiliser and remember to label the planting position.

Plant winter baskets and containers
To get the best displays from your winter and spring hanging baskets and containers, plant them now. Plants to use include ivy, dwarf conifers and dwarf shrubs, winter-flowering pansies, hardy primulas and polyanthus. And add bulbs to extend the display. Check out our extensive range of plants, containers, baskets, basket liners, brackets and compost – and remember to add a controlled-release fertiliser.

Houseplant care
Now’s the time to give your houseplants some tender loving care. Most houseplants will need less water than in summer and you can stop feeding foliage houseplants. Autumn and winter-flowering houseplants will benefit from feeding with a high potash liquid fertiliser every 7 to 10 days. If your plants have been enjoying the summer outdoors bring them back inside before the weather deteriorates.

Force bulbs for Xmas display
Now’s the time to buy your prepared hyacinth and other bulbs to guarantee flowers for Christmas. Plant them in pots or shallow bowls, leaving the neck of the bulb just exposed above the compost. Then place somewhere cold and dark for 10 to 14 weeks. They can be moved into the light and warmth when the flower buds start emerging. Remember to pick up your bulbs, bulb fibre or compost, pots and containers and labels to ensure beautiful bulbs for Christmas.

Autumn lawn care
Liven up your lawn by removing the build up of dead grass, moss and other debris with a spring-tine rake or powered scarifier. Then aerate the soil with a hollow-tine aerator or garden fork and add a top dressing. Then apply a granular autumn lawn feed or, feed, weed and mosskiller. Finally re-seed any gaps with the correct lawn seed mix.

Cuttings of summer bedding
Take cuttings from all your half-hardy bedding plants, such as fuchsias, bedding geraniums, marguerites and osteospermums, to ensure you have plenty of plants for next year. Take the cuttings just below a leaf, remove the leaves from the lower half of the cutting and dip the end in hormone rooting powder or liquid. Then insert the cuttings in pots of cuttings compost. Cover the pots with a polythene bag or put them in a propagator and place somewhere warm and sheltered. Don’t forget to pick up everything you need for successful cuttings, including pots, compost, dibbers, rooting hormone, labels and propagators.

Autumn planting
Autumn is nature’s natural time for planting. We have a wide range of hardy trees, shrubs, herbaceous perennials, roses and climbers in stock. Dig in plenty of compost, composted bark, or other bulky soil improvers, and add a slow release fertiliser such as bonemeal – or controlled-release fertiliser to the soil. Make sure all plants are well watered before and after planting.

Protect fruit trees
Now’s the time to apply grease bands around the trunks of fruit trees to prevent damage later on from wingless winter moths. Carefully rubbing off any loose bark will remove hiding places for other pests. To kill over-wintering pest eggs use Growing Success Winter Wash when all the leaves have dropped. Spray peaches and nectarines with Dithane 945 or a copper fungicide to help protect against peach leaf curl. Finally, always pick up all fallen diseased leaves and destroy them. If you need any more help on growing perfect fruit – just ask any of our plant staff.

Autumn tidy up
Get your garden ready for winter with a good autumn tidy up. Rake up any leaves and other debris and compost them, but diseased leaves should be disposed of. If you have a lot of leaves to rake up consider buying a garden Vac instead. Clean the bamboo canes and other supports with Jeyes Fluid or Armillatox. And give the patio a good cleaning with the same products or indulge yourself with a pressure washer.

Composting
Don’t throw away your spent bedding plants, kitchen waste and other material – turn them into valuable compost for improving your soil and mulching your beds and borders. Even those fallen tree leaves can be turned into leafmould. Making good compost and leafmould is easy with our wide range of compost bins, compost and leafmould accelerators, leaf rakes and collectors. Just ask if you need any help with successful composting.

Greenhouse care
Greenhouses and cold frames should be prepared now ready for overwintering tender plants. Start by cleaning them with Jeyes Fluid or Armillatox. Then put up bubble wrap double-glazing to keep it warmer during the winter and to help cut fuel bills. Horticultural fleece can also be draped over plants to help provide a few extra degrees of frost protection. Check your heaters to ensure they’re in full working order or buy a more efficient replacement – and buy in plenty of paraffin or gas if you use these types of heaters.

Spring bedding
Plug any gaps in the garden with spring bedding plants. Chose from wallflowers, bellis daisies, forget-me-not, winter-flowering pansies, violas, hardy primulas and polyanthus. And remember to add some spring-flowering bulbs too. Just ask if you need any help in selecting the best types for your garden.

Plants of the month
Keep your garden full of colour throughout autumn with our plants of the month. Choose from ericas, hydrangeas, potentillas, asters, echinacea, phlox, rudbeckias, hardy chrysanthemums, cyclamen and winter-flowering pansies. And remember those plants that are grown for berries, autumn foliage colours and the wide range of evergreens.

Make a new lawn
This is the best time to make a new lawn or replace one that is past its best. Good preparation is the key to success, so work over the soil incorporating compost or composted bark, rake and level the ground, walk over it to settle the soil, add some general granular fertiliser and rake again. Water well and keep the soil moist to ensure rapid establishment. Don’t forget to pick up all the products you need – or ask any of our staff for help if you need more advice.

Summer bedding
For a splash of early summer colour next year, sow Californian poppies, annual poppies, godetia, larkspurs and a number of other hardy annuals now. Simply sow them where you want them to flower in soil that has been improved with compost or composted bark.

Pest watch
As temperatures start to drop, outdoor pests become less active and diseases start to become dormant but you should still stay vigilant. Clearing away leaves and other debris will remove hiding places for pests. Fallen diseased leaves should be raked up and destroyed. Badly diseased stems and branches are best pruned away. The cooler, damper weather means that slugs and snails will become more active, so protect vulnerable plants with a suitable control or trap. This is also the last time you can treat plants for vine weevil grubs. Spray peaches and nectarines with Dithane 945 or a copper fungicide to help protect against peach leaf curl. Indoors, pests and diseases will remain active. Early identification of a problem will ensure it doesn’t get out of control, so check your plants regularly for telltale signs. If your plants have a problem just ask one of our friendly staff to help you choose a suitable product to deal with it.

Winter Spring Hanging Basket Q&A
Some customers tell us that their winter and spring hanging baskets and containers never look as good as they were expecting. What advice can we give?

Yes, the most important tip I can give is to plant as early as possible. Failures always come from late planting – so get on with it now before temperatures drop. And Ken, I think most people don’t put in enough plants – it’s important that the top of the container is covered with plants before winter sets in. So make them look pretty full at planting time. And if you’re planting a mesh hanging basket always put plants through the mesh. I always recommend using a good potting compost – don’t try to re-use the compost from summer containers. Add a controlled-release fertiliser to the compost as this will feed the plants and a little water-retention gel as this will help prevent the compost drying out on warmer days. Regular watering is important. And finally, raise containers off the ground with pot feet or similar as this will ensure good drainage and prevent waterlogging.

Forced Hyacinths Q&A
Many customers have problems with their forced hyacinths for Christmas . How can we help Ken?

It’s essential that you buy prepared bulbs that have been specially treated to flower early. You can grow ordinary hyacinths in pots for indoors but they will flower much later. The prepared bulbs need 10 to 14 weeks of dark and cold conditions to produce roots and initiate those flower buds. So start by potting them up in bowls or other containers now. If you’re using containers without drainage holes then use bulb fibre rather than compost, The bulbs should be planted so that the neck of the bulb is just exposed above the compost. Water the compost or bulb fibre so it is just moist. The containers are then placed somewhere cool and dark – I plunge mine under compost or straw outside but you could place them in a thick black bag or light-proof cardboard box and then place in a cupboard – as long as it is cold. The containers must be kept in these conditions until the foliage is about one to two inches high and the flower buds can be seen just emerging through the centre of the foliage. Then, they can then be moved into a lightly shaded but cool place. And then after a couple of weeks they can be moved to their flowering position. And that’s all there is to it – success every time.

Lawns Q&A
As this is the best time of year to get lawns back into tip-top condition what should gardeners be doing now?

Lawns get a lot of use and abuse in summer and the weather this year hasn’t been great for good grass growth. Luckily a little TLC now will produce a lawn to be proud of – and one that will make the rest of the garden look fantastic. We should start by removing the dead grass, moss and other debris with a spring-tine rake or powered scarifier. If you’ve done this properly the lawn should look as if it has had a right going over! And If your soil is clay or the lawn has been used a lot, the soil will be very compact and this can lead to moss and waterlogging problems. So aerate the soil all over with a hollow-tine aerator or garden fork inserted to the depth of its tines. Then fill in the holes with a top dressing. Then you need to apply a lawn fertiliser. It needs to be an autumn feed as spring and summer ones contain too much nitrogen. If weeds and moss are a problem use a feed, weed and mosskiller. A granular product will give longer lasting results. Finally if you have lots of gaps it pays to re-seed them with a suitable lawn seed mix – or you might even consider re-turfing.

Climbers Q&A
Now’s a good time to plant climbers, so what can we recommend to ensure successful planting and establishment?

Now’s one of the best times for planting climbers as the soil is warm and moist so the plants will establish quickly before winter arrives. Start by ensuring the plant is suitable for the aspect – there’s no point in planting climbers that like full sun in shade and vice versa. I always give the plants a good soaking before planting by standing the pots in a bucket of water for 10 minutes.
Dig a good-sized planting hole – around two foot square, and deep enough for the depth of the rootball plus some added compost at its base. Fork over the bottom of the hole and add some compost or composted bark. Then carefully remove the plant from its pot and ensure its planted at the same depth as it was in the pot. Except for clematis – they’re best planted with about 4 inches of stem buried in the soil. Then refill the hole with a mixture of soil and compost or composted bark firming the soil as you go. You can also add some controlled-release fertiliser or bone meal but make sure it is well mixed in. Once the hole is full give the soil a thorough watering and be prepared to water weekly if the soil becomes dry during the first six months or so. Make sure you have a suitable and strong enough support and tie in the stems in such a way that they will cover the designated area. Now, Training the stems horizontally or in a fan shape will not only give better shape and coverage but will also help promote better flowering.

Compost Q&A
As a lot of our customers have plenty of garden waste at this time of year, lets advise them on how to recycle it into perfect, crumbly compost.

Good idea Ken, of course first you’ll need a container or compost bin to keep all the contents together which helps build up the temperature needed for the material to rot down. Now the best size for an open bin is one cubic yard. Then make sure you have a good mixture of material – all grass clippings for instance will just make a horrid gooey mess, so add kitchen waste, spent bedding plants or even shredded newspapers and make sure everything is well mixed together.
That’s right, but don’t compost cooked food, the roots of perennial weeds or weeds that are in flower or are seeding. And Make sure all the material is in small pieces to aid the decomposition process. Now I cut up stems and other large material into small sections with secateurs and I shred woody stems. Try to fill the bin in one go with lots of plant material as this will help build up the high temperatures. And cover open bins and heaps with plastic sacks or even pieces of carpet Now if you have a lot of tree leaves then it’s a good idea to compost these separately or mix them with grass cuttings to make a lovely material called leaf mould – which is perfect as a soil conditioner and mulch.