Get into gardening

Vegetable garden

Plant your fruit bushes (blackcurrants, redcurrants and gooseberries) between November and March.

Tip: Now's the time to buy things to help your garden get through winter. This includes fruit cages, netting soil conditioner, mulches, fleeces and outdoor pots.

Bedding Plants

Plant out your Wallflower seedlings to fill in any gaps in borders. For a bit of extra spring impact, plant tulips in a contrasting colour between them.

Clear any fallen leaves from the beds.

Now is the last chance to plant out winter bedding. You could try Wallflowers, Forget-me-nots, Bellis, Primula, Viola (winter pansies) and other spring bedding flowers. Plant them into well-prepared ground, or pots with suitable compost.

Watch out for downy mildew and black spot, especially on winter pansies.

Bulbs

This is your last chance to plant tulips for spring flowering.
Make sure you’ve brought any tender plants and bulbs inside or put into a heated greenhouse (they don’t like the cold).

Containers

Line wire baskets and fill them with bulbs for spring flowering.
Insulate your pots with bubble wrap.
Move any tender plants into a sheltered place, like a porch or greenhouse to help get them through the worst of the winter weather.

Fruit

Once you've picked your last blackberries, cut back the canes that have produced fruit to ground level, and tie in the best new canes.

Prune any cane fruits (like raspberries) when they’ve finished producing fruit.

It is also a good time to start moving fruit trees to new locations. If you still have any apples and pears then get them picked and stored.

Greenhouse

Before the winter sets in, clean the exterior of the greenhouse by washing the panes of glass with warm water and a sponge.

Hedges

If part of your hedge has seen better days, now is the time to dig up any dead or dying plants and replace them.

Bare-root deciduous (seasonal leaf) hedging plants, trees and shrubs become available this month. They need to be planted as soon as possible to avoid them dying out.

This is also a great time to move trees and shrubs growing in unsuitable locations.

Houseplants

Bring a splash of colour and scent indoors. Hyacinths, Cyclamen and Azalea all look good as houseplants. Poinsettias are now available in Homebase too.

Lawn

Clear any fallen leaves from lawns.

In milder parts of the country, you can still carry out autumn lawn care like scarification, aeration and top dressing – as long as the soil isn't waterlogged.

It is now too late to sow grass seed, but new lawns can still be laid from turf if the weather is not too cold.

Don’t feed the lawn with any leftover summer feeds. These contain too much nitrogen, which stimulates lush growth, and at this time of year lush growth will be vulnerable to diseases. Use an autumn lawn feed, which contains more potassium and phosphorous, to encourage hardiness and root growth instead.

Perennials (winter surviving plants)

Cut back yellowing foliage on hardy perennials like Hostas (it will make the garden look tidier and stop pests from using the leaves as shelter over winter).

Continue to cut down faded herbaceous perennials (like apple blossom) and add these to the compost heap. It is still a good time to lift and divide overgrown clumps of herbaceous perennials.

Roses

Prune roses to prevent wind damage.
It is an ideal time to plant roses. Avoid planting in areas where roses were previously growing, otherwise new roses may suffer from replant diseases (rose sickness).
Any climbing roses should be cut back now.

Shrubs

It's the end of the growing season for Dogwood (Cornus), Honeysuckle and other woody shrubs. Create new plants by taking hardwood cuttings from ripened stems.

Pruning and renovation of many deciduous shrubs and hedges can be carried out from now throughout the winter.

Shrubs normally pruned hard in the spring – such as Buddleja davidii, Cornus alba and Lavatera, can be cut back by half now.

Trees

Pruning and renovation of many deciduous trees, shrubs and hedges can be carried out from now throughout the winter.

Tree and shrub seeds and berries can still be picked and sown, once they're ripe.

Vegetables

Plant early broad beans and peas.
Plant winter hardy (autumn planting) onions and garlic for a crop early June.
It’s your last chance to sow winter salad seeds (don’t forget to plant them under glass for an early crop).
Pick and enjoy your vegetables like kale, brussels & broccoli.