Gardeners’ World – October 2024

We had a little rain in the last month but then sun and wind, so the ground  became dry again, and on 2 occasions, there was frost at night. Some sheltered gardens were not affected but at the allotments the leaves of the marrows, courgettes and squashes were taken and some of my more exposed dahlias. I have never lost plants to frost before in September, is this our changing climate?

Now is a good time to move old and overcrowded peonies. Carefully dig them up, split them and discard any old tubers,  re-plant them just below the surface of the soil. If planted too deep, they will not flower. If your dahlias survived the frost, keep dead heading them. The round buds are flowers to come but the cone shaped ones are the seedheads so cut back to a leaf bud. Nerines are about to come into flower; lovely shades of pink to red and white.

Also flowering now are autumn crocus, aka ‘naked boys/ladies’ because the flowers emerge from the soil before the foliage appears. This is large and untidy but needs to be left to die down so the nutrients can go back into the corm before cutting back. Now is the time to plant daffodils, hyacinths and crocus for next spring, but don’t plant tulips, leave until November because they are prone to tulip fire or botrytis if planted too early.