THE GARDEN

There should be plenty of colour in your late summer garden. Dahlias will bloom right up until the first frost if they have plenty of water and regular feeding with Miracle-Gro Plant Food. Before they finish flowering, tie labels to the lower stems of those plants that are performing well. These are the ones to over-winter with care, the remainder being the ones that need replacing with fresh stock next spring.

More obvious late summer colour should be coming from clumps of Sedum, Rudbeckia, Michaelmas daisies (Aster Novi-belgii) and cone flowers (Echinacea). Dead-heading of these plants and surrounding roses and bedding plants will encourage long-term flowering. Watch out for signs of white powdery mildew on the buds and foliage of flowering plants and spray with a systemic fungicide such as FungusClear or FungusClear Gun! to control its spread. If these decorative plants are also showing signs of greenfly or blackfly, spray instead with RoseClear 3 or RoseClear Gun! so that you can clear these pests and control powdery mildew in just one simple treatment.

Clear away any bedding plants that have finished flowering and place on the compost heap. Dig up the bedding without trying to dig up the weeds, especially if they are perennial ones such as bindweed, ground elder or nettles that have extensive root systems. If you leave the weeds clean and intact you can simply spray the weed leaves with Roundup GC or Tumbleweed Original Extra Strong to kill them - roots and all. Trail the bindweed over the bare earth and then spray on a calm day when spray drift will not present a big problem to other plants. Pick a dry day when no rain is expected, for the weedkillers need up to 6 hours on the leaf or you will have to re-apply.

In most gardens you will need space to plant out winter pansies, wallflowers, tulips, daffodils and other bulbs to provide your spring highlights.

Before planting new material, clear all remaining weeds with Weedol or Weedol Gun! so that you have a clean start to winter.

On heavy clay soil add organic matter in the autumn to improve soil structure over the winter. Place well rotted home-made compost, Levington Farmyard Manure or Levington Soil Improver & Mulch to the surface and dig in. Plant bulbs such as daffodils, narcissi and snakehead fritillaries at the required depth and plant winter and spring bedding such as daisies (Bellis), wallflowers or winter pansies. If you give these plants a feed of Miracle-Gro Plant Food immediately after planting and again a couple of weeks later it will help them produce a good root system and encourage good flowering during mild spells. A sprinkling of SlugClear Advanced Pellets will protect these plants from the attention of slugs and snail.

Give winter flowering heathers (Erica carnea) their last feed with Miracle-Gro Ericaceous Plant Food.

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ON THE PATIO AND CONTAINERS

There is such a stunning selection of plants available now to use in autumn and winter baskets and containers that it is not surprising that this is one of the fastest growing areas in British gardening. All can be planted with spring bulbs - especially tubs which can have multi-layers of bulbs that will give a succession of colour. Plant daffodils deepest, followed by hyacinths and crocus. Top off every container with winter flowering bedding. Look out for daisies (Bellis) and winter pansies in all their various colours. You can buy pansies in single orange and lemon colours or a mix of colours. You can buy small seedlings as plug plants produced by Kinder or Plug-U-Grow and grow them on in Levington Multi-Purpose Compost.

When planting up winter displays, it is important to make sure that you select good plants and use the best compost you can afford because winter weather conditions can present a challenge to plant growth. Use Levington Multi-Purpose Compost as this contains a special wetting agent to help reduce the risk of waterlogging. To maximise the effectiveness of this agent and to ensure excess water drains away quickly add a few broken shards of pottery to keep the drain holes clear and use pot 'feet' to ensure drainage remains unimpeded.

These plants will however, need some nutrition next spring and it can be impossible to find an opportunity to apply a liquid feed when the compost remains permanently wet from winter rains. It is a good idea to incorporate a little Osmocote or Miracle-Gro Controlled Release Plant Food into the compost at planting time to see the container through until next summer.

The beauty of a controlled release plant food in this situation is that it closes down in low temperatures, when the plants aren't growing, but starts to release nutrients as temperatures rise and plant demand increases. This means that the plant is never over fed, with its consequent risk of root scorch and frost susceptibility, nor is there any nutrient wastage through leaching.

FRUIT AND VEGETABLES

VEGETABLES
Gather French and runner beans regularly and freeze excess. Watch out for late infestations of blackfly and spray as soon as the first signs are seen on the newer shoots. Use an insecticide that does not restrict harvesting of food crops such as BugClear Gun! or Nature's Answer Natural Pest Control. Both allow the picking of selected food crops either the day after treatment or even earlier in the case of BugClear Gun!

Sweetcorn plants should be producing succulent cobs which will benefit from weekly feeds with Miracle-Gro Plant Food to encourage swelling. Test for ripeness when the silks turn a chocolate brown colour. When squeezed the kernels produce a clear liquid before ripeness and a milky liquid when ready. For maximum flavour, eat or freeze as soon as harvested.

As the ground is cleared of crops in the vegetable plot, check the area for weeds, especially those with creeping roots such as couch grass (twitch), ground elder and bindweed. If you find these perennial weeds then treat the whole area with a systemic weedkiller such as Roundup GC or Tumbleweed Original Extra Strong before you start digging. Leave the weeds a couple of weeks to absorb the glyphosate right down to the tips of the roots and after this time dig over the area leaving a rough surface for winter frosts to break down.

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Harvest blackberries, loganberries and autumn fruiting raspberries as the fruit ripens. A few feeds of dilute Miracle-Gro Ericaceous Plant Food or Miracid will provide essential nutrients to encourage a strong crop and the necessary chelated iron to help prevent leaves from turning pale and yellow.

Some apple varieties will be ready for harvest in September. Wait until the colour develops on the fruit and start to pick the ripest when the apple comes away from the tree easily. Test this by lifting the apple in the palm of the hand giving it a gentle twist. If it comes away with stalk attached then its ready. Pick the tree over a few weeks as the fruit ripens. First to be ready will be the fruit on the top of the tree followed by lower outside fruit and finally apples on the inside. Store only the sound, blemish-free fruit on trays, wrapping each in paper or special oiled wrapping.

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IN THE GREENHOUSE AND CONSERVATORY

Days are getting shorter and sun strength is diminishing. To make the most of all light, it's time to remove any shading on the outside of greenhouse glass.

Hot summers encourage the breeding of red spider mite, especially in the greenhouse. They like a hot, dry atmosphere so misting plants daily and damping down the paths and beds with plain water will help to deter them.

Keep tomatoes, peppers and aubergines fed every week with Tomorite to ensure full fruiting until the end of the season.

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THE LAWN

Dead leaves left on the lawn for a few weeks will encourage bare patches and worm casts. That's why it is important to rake up the leaves at least once a week.

Now is the time to aerate the lawn surface by driving a garden fork or hollow tine tool into the surface every 15 cm (6 inches). This will improve drainage and allow air to the roots.

Most lawns will have suffered from wear and tear during the summer and need some attention if they are to wake up next spring looking thick, healthy and attractive.

To help this recovery and to encourage new grass roots to spread far and deep, dress the lawn with a special autumn fertilizer as soon as you are able. There are several to choose from. If you have no spreader then the 100m2 size of EverGreen Autumn comes complete with a handy dispenser which makes spreading as easy as walking. Those people with a dedicated Evergreen Easy Spreader can buy Evergreen Autumn in bags or boxes, while those people with a top-of-the-range Scotts Evengreen drop spreader should stick with Scotts Autumn Lawn Builder.

All of these fertilizers will green-up your grass this autumn and gradually feed grass roots so that the lawn is thicker and hardier for next year. None of them will cost a fortune. You can feed the average sized lawn of 80 sq. metres for less than £10 and it will only take you 10 minutes to apply it. Your investment in helping your lawn to recover this autumn will be rewarded with a much better lawn next spring.

Many gardeners are tired of the regular mowing necessary for a smooth lawn and are tempted by the idea of a wildflower meadow in their own garden. If you want to have a more natural area of grass then you can buy a box of EverGreen Meadow Seed from most garden centres that contains a mixture of stunning wild flowers and grasses. Sown now in any soil, you will have a great meadow next year full of colour and fragrance which will prove a great long term investment. This meadow will not only be a delight for you to walk through, but will contain flowers that are nectar and pollen rich to attract wildlife.

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ALWAYS READ THE LABEL. USE PESTICIDES SAFELY
BugClear™ and BugClear Gun!™ contain bifenthrin. FungusClear™ and FungusClear Gun!™ contain penconazole. RoundupGC, Roundup Ultra 3000, Roundup Tough Weedkiller Ready to Use and Tumbleweed Original Extra Strong Gel contain glyphosate. Roseclear® 2 contains bupirimate, pirimicarb and triforine. RoseClear® Gun!™ contains bifenthrin and flutriafol. SlugClear™ Mini Pellets contain metaldehyde. Spotless® contains carbendazim. Verdone® Extra contains fluroxypyr, clopyralid and MCPA. Weedol® contains diquat and paraquat. Weedol® Gun!™ contains diquat.

®, ™, Miracle-Gro, and Scotts are trade marks of The Scotts Company or its affiliates. Roundup is the registered Trade Mark of Monsanto Company.

GARDENING INFORMATION FROM The Scotts Company (UK) Limited

WRITTEN BY JOHN CLOWES

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