Believe it or not, autumn is fast approaching and it’s time to start thinking about how you can keep your garden looking great through the cooler months.
This time of year is all about colour and with that in mind, SoGlos picked the brains of Glenn Satterthwaite, the managing director of The Fairview Gardener, to get some hints and tips on eco-friendly gardening and how to keep your garden colourful through the autumn.
Having looked after the day-to-day running of the garden centre for just over 10 years, Glenn knows just what it takes to keep gardens looking great right through the seasons.
For more information visit thefairviewgardener.co.uk.
With the environment being on a lot of people’s minds recently, do you have any tips for running an eco-friendly garden?
You want to be as environmentally friendly as you can with everything that you do. Try not to grow plants that don’t work in the environment that you’re in; try to grow things that are better for your location and go as organic as you can.
If you want to plant something, you don’t want to have to water it constantly. So, if you’ve got a very dry bed, then use plants that are relevant for that dry bed. Likewise, if you’ve got a very wet location, work with your environment.
Reducing waste is also a hot topic at the moment, do you have any top tips on making compost during the autumn months?
Compost is a long-term thing. You need to do compost over a few years, really – it’s not just a quick fix. We have got compost accelerators which add the right bacteria to your compost heaps, but you need to be turning your compost and making sure that it has plenty of air and worms.
What are the most important jobs to do in the garden during the autumn?
At this time of year, it’s great to get some colour into the garden. Make sure that the herbaceous plants are deadheaded to give them longevity and to keep them flowering. Keep deadheading and cutting back roses, too. There are a lot of things that you can add to your borders for colour as well – we’re getting flowers like autumn pansies in at the moment.
Because it’s been really warm and hot, then windy and wet this summer, we’ve noticed that some of the bedding plants have started to go over early this year. Already, customers are shopping for autumn bedding plants like chrysanthemums and berried plants.
What flowers are in season and are there any autumn trends to look out for?
People are moving towards permanent planting like herbaceous and autumnal colours. You’ve got lovely heuchera plants that look really nice at this time of year, like crocosmias or heleniums, and there are a lot of really nice grasses too. The trend is really going towards permanent planting.
Any final tips for the autumn?
This is the time of year to plant your spring bulbs like daffodils, crocuses and tulips. Also, if you wanted to get indoor bulbs and indoor flowering plants, like the hyacinths, paperwhites and the highly scented daffodils, you’ll need to start getting them in now.
Plus, I would say there’s probably just another week of getting in your Christmas potatoes as well, in order to harvest them on Christmas Day.
This is a time where people are just tidying up. People really like to have their gardens looking nice all the way through now and there’s no reason why you can’t have a garden looking great with colour all year round.
For more information about The Fairview Gardener see The Fairview Gardener, call (01452) 750436, or visit thefairviewgardener.co.uk directly.
By Amy Wright
