Raring2go! Rochdale

18 raring2go .co.uk Raring2go! Raring2grow! HOME GARDENING IDEAS FOR FAMILIES ‘My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece’ Claude Monet www.raring2go.co.uk For more great tips click here to visit our Raring2grow! Facebook page Garden clearance... Picking up debris and clearing leaves that have started to fall as summer draws to an end, is an important job. Create small piles of debris and twigs throughout your garden or under your shed to give homes to insect life and invertebrates. They will be a perfect spot for hibernation for insects and cute hedgehogs. Soil prep & planting... Autumn is the best time for soil preparation for clay soils. But do it whenever you can. Dig and feed the soil. Clear any dead bedding plants, and you may also need to replace with compost for winter bedding. You can also plant wallflowers and pansies ready for spring, which will be with us all too quickly. Hardwood cuttings... Hardwood cuttings pro- vide a relatively cheap and easy method of growing plants for next year. The Hardwood cuttings are taken in the dormant season of the plants. Take semi-hard- wood cuttings of plants - lavender, camellias, honeysuckle etc. Keep them in pots on the windowsill until you're ready to use them in the spring. Scarify the lawn... Autumn is by far the best time of year to scarify your lawn as prompt recovery is the key to success. Ideally the soil should be warm and moist. Scarify your lawn by removing built up dead grass, weeds and moss from the lawn's surface using a metal rake. Seasonal pruning... Autumn pruning your plants can have a huge impact on how they grow next year. It keeps them healthy, vigorous, and balanced and stops large varieties from taking over the garden. Hedges need a good pruning too, and it’s a good time to cut back your fruit trees to stimulate the formation of fruit buds and their colourful flowers. Cut down and divide... Perennials will likely have run out of steam when autumn comes around. Decide on the layout of your garden that you want to leave for winter and cut down all of the remaining perennials when they have finished flowering. Take offshoots from perennials that may have outgrown their allotted space and pot them ready for next spring. Get ‘Garden Beautiful’ in time for Autumn