Autumn is a time when it's important to understand the true
nature of how plants work. Although we perceive that it is the time of the year when
mother nature is slowing down, nevertheless this is a good time to plant.
Here are a few good reasons why:
- The temperature is not too hot, that often causes stress to the plants and stress to the gardener when there is often not enough time to get around and water new plants.
- It’s not too cold yet to stop root growth, for although apparent growth of plants seems halted (no further leaf or flowers produced) this is a good time for root systems to become consolidated, and to become strengthened.
- It's a good time for plants to become established, ready for a showy spurt of growth when spring comes along.
Trees
It’s good to bear in mind if you have any space for tree
planting (or hedge planting for that matter) it's good to plant them during
autumn for many reasons:
- They get established better than in summer with no associated watering problems. ( "What watering problems?” I here you ask!)
- It is much cheaper to buy bare-rooted stock during this ‘bare root’ season from October to March (dependent on the species of tree).
- As mentioned above the soil is still relatively warm, giving the tree a good start in its new position.
It’s an excellent time to plant shrubs and you may find that
some bare-rooted shrubs are inexpensive, especially many wildlife varieties:
hollies, yew, lonicera (the climbing one), as well as many buxus if you are planning
a box hedge.
Vegetables
Quite a variety of things can be sown in your vegetable plot
at this time: Beetroot, chard, kohlrabi, oriental greens, calabrese, turnips,
spinach, spring cabbage, endive, carrots (if fast growing varieties). You could
also put in strawberry plants.
Bulbs
Recommended bulb plantings include: grape hyacinths,
hyacinths, daffodils, jonquils, ixia, freesia, ranunculus, sparaxis.
Image on the right: Acer palmatum atropurpureum just
starting to turn to it's magnificent autumn shades.
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Hi David, fantastic blog! Some really excellent gardening tips here, and some beautiful designs here too.
I don't suppose you would be interested in sharing this over at Glipho? We're a new social blogging site, with an active community of creative bloggers, many whom write about gardening and design themselves- I know they would love to read and discuss your work here! If you like, come have a look around at http://glipho.com and see what you think. You can also import all your posts from this blog, over to Glipho- it's pretty easy!
Thanks for your time, and for the wonderful read. I look forward to hearing more from you!
All the best,
Teo