General
Welcome to Seasonal Gardening
Seasonal Gardening provides a month by month account of tasks that need to be done in the garden. Our free online guide is packed with hints, tips, helpful projects and useful gardening ideas for every season.
Covering the whole of the UK (Great Britain, England, Scotland & Wales) - Hardiness Zones 7, 8 & 9.
What to do this month
propagating your own plants
November Gardening Tasks
Continue protecting plants from frost. Collect leaves to make leaf mulch and tidy-up and dig over borders ready for winter. There is plenty of time from now until the end of December to plant spring bulbs.
Save money on trees and shrubs by buying bare rooted stock now ready for planting in early spring.
Cover compost heaps with a layer of old waste carpet to retain heat and keep heavy rain off.
Protecting Tender Plants and Terracotta Pots From Frost
Protect tender plants by bringing them into the greenhouse or covering with horticultural fleece or straw. Moving potted plants against a sheltered south facing wall can also protect them from mild frosts. Protect large clay pots by placing them in a sheltered area and raising them up on stands, to ensure that water drains away freely. Water settling in terracotta or clay pot can easily freeze and expand and crack the pot, even if they are frost-proof! You can also wrap pots in bubble wrap or hessian for further protection.
Container plants, especially those in a rain shadow (under eaves or balconies etc.) will still need watering over the winter months. The ideal is to just keep them moist, but not soaking wet.
Time to Plant Winter Containers
Are your borders and pots looking a bit drab and dreary? Why not spruce up your garden with containers or hanging baskets filled with winter flowering bedding and evergreens, which will reward you with a splash of colour right through until spring. Ideal bedding plants are violas, pansies, cyclamen, bellis, polyanthus and primulas. Mix them with evergreen plants like perennial grasses, ornamental cabbages, trailing ivy and cineraria and/or small shrubs such as variegated Euonymus, Hebes, Skimmia japonica or winter-flowering heathers.
Plant of the Month
Pyracantha (firethorn). Although a very common shrub in many gardens up and down the UK. There are few plants that can compete with it at this time of year, with its masses of red, yellow or orange berries. A fond favourite with both birds and bees.
Fatsia japonica An unusual exotic looking shrub, with large leathery, deeply lobed leaves. Silvery grey candelabra style flowers appear in October/November followed by black pea-like berries.
Garden of the Month
Westonbirt Arboretum
Gloucester.
Started in 1829 by Robert Staynor and maintained by the Forestry Commission since 1956, Westonbirt
Arboretum is Britain's oldest and largest tree collection.
Garden Birds to see this Month
Chaffinches are some of the most common native birds in the UK.
New Additions:
New plant descriptions added include:
Alyssum saxatile, Arabis, Armeria maritima, Cerastium, Helianthemum, Iberis sempervirens, Aubrieta, Saxifraga, Sedum, Sempervivum.