There is a wistful softness about golden October, a period that
can produce some of our most congenial weather in which to enjoy
the less urgent jobs of autumn such as lawn raking! Highly
meditative if you allow yourself to be lost in its tranquil rhythm,
or perhaps even better, picking apples and pears. So relax and
enjoy the garden's final fling.
Nature abhors a vacuum and in the veggie garden we ensure she is
kept happy by filling any gap in our crop rotation with a green
manure. These are crops such as Grazing Rye, Tares or Buckwheat
that have the capacity to produce a large amount of ground-covering
soft green growth that suppresses weeds whilst growing and that can
be dug in when the space is needed for anther crop. This has the
added benefit of increasing soil fertility, building up humus and
improving soil structure, what a winner!
Bulbs in pots are a sure fire winner for the patio or cool
glasshouse bench and now is the time to be planting them.
Favourites with us are tulips, hyacinths and lilies. At West Dean
plant them into pots filled with a mix of John Innes and All
Purpose compost and topped off with a layer of grit on the soil
surface. They are then put somewhere cool and dark until the first
leaf tips disturb the surface. At this point they are staked, if
necessary, and then put into a cold frame to grow on before going
into the display house as the flowers open.
One of the subtle but special pleasures of this period is the
flowering of Cyclamen hederifolium. This is followed by the
emergence of its leaves which, in the best cases, are almost as
showy as the flowers. This is a tough, no nonsense corm that has
the added benefit of self-seeding generously and naturalising well
in thin grass under the high canopy of trees. To help it in its
spread we have been growing on hundreds of seedlings in plug trays
for a couple of years and then colonising new areas with them. In a
few years these should look stunning
Now is a perfect time to spruce up your lawn, particularly after
a hot, dry summer like the one we have just had. Any areas that are
severely compacted and looking thin should be aerated using a
hollow tined fork. If you don't have such a thing an ordinary
garden fork is better than nothing. Then the whole area should be
given a thorough scarification to remove the layer of "thatch",
that is the undecomposed organic matter that builds up in a lawn
over a season.
If you have a large area you may want to hire a machine in but
for a small lawn a spring tine rake does a perfectly good job and
also offers the opportunity for some useful aerobic exercise. Then
you can over-sow with a seed mix appropriate to your lawn and
finally finish it off by topdressing and working that in using the
back of a rake.
Jim Buckland, Gardens Manager @jimwestdean