Gardeners get seriously itchy fingers by October, and want/need to start chucking out old annuals, cutting back really exhausted herbaceous plants and to carry out all sorts of adjustments – but with 40% less rain than normal last month (where I live, at any rate), the soil is still rock hard and we should all try to hold off disturbing plant roots until the soil moist. The great garden clear up is therefore going to be a protracted affair.
Given the right soil conditions, however, the next few weeks are a good time to lift and divide herbaceous perennials that need it (after three or four years). Their best bits – the outside sections – should be replanted in compost-improved soil, and will re-establish themselves quickly before the temperature takes a nose dive next month. It is now common practice not to cut back or disturb those plants that have ‘good winter structure’, or that provide birds with food – or just something to trapeze around on for fun. As long as this year’s debris is cleared away and everything is shipshape by March, all will be well.
This is not a serious shrub-pruning time, however much we may want to ‘tidy’ them up. Leave spring flowering shrubs such as Ceanothus and Hydrangeas well alone or you may find yourself cutting off the best flowering shoots. Late flowerers such as Buddleias and Hypericums can be cut back by half if they are a real eyesore, and pruned properly (down to a low, woody framework) at the correct time, in early spring.
