Protecting Outdoor Furniture & Gardening Tips for September

As the year moves steadily from summer towards autumn, there are a number of things you need to do to your garden. As well as protecting your furniture from the cold, you need to plant your spring bulbs, bring your cacti inside, and aerate your lawn.

Protect Your Furniture from the Cold

Bali Reclaimed Teak Picnic Bench Set

One thing that you will definitely need to do as the weather gets colder is to protect your garden furniture from the cold and damp. To do this, you will need to get some garden furniture covers. For example, if you have a wood garden bench, you do not want it to become cracked or warped, so make sure you cover it up with a garden furniture cover.

Lawn

One thing you should do at this time of the year is to aerate your lawn using a garden fork. This involves making holes in the lawn to let the stale carbon dioxide escape and let the oxygen-rich air in. You can also re-seed any bare patches of the lawn. Alternatively, if you want to sew a new lawn, September is a good time because the earth will still be warm.

Flowers

Now is the time to buy spring bulbs, as most of them will be best planted in September or October. September is also a good time to collect seeds from annuals and perennials. Collect them in paper bags, leave them to dry in a warm place for a few days, and then clean them and store them in envelopes. If you fancy something different for your garden next year, why not see if any public gardens have seed-collecting days.

Fruit & Vegetables

Protect Your Fruit & Veg come September

To keep birds away from your raspberries and blackberries, cover them in netting. As for apples, pick them and eat them as soon as they are ripe, because they will quickly go rotten if you leave them.

Carefully lift ripe onions out of the ground, lay them out to dry and then store them. For sweetcorn, once the silks turn from golden to brown they are ready for harvesting.

Greenhouse

Now is the time to bring houseplants and cacti inside if they have been outside during the summer. If you want Christmas flowering plants, buy the bulbs now and plant them in bowls along with bulb planting fibre.

Around this time, you should continue taking cuttings from any tender perennials. You should also start watering any indoor cyclamen plants that you kept from the previous winter.

Whether it's protecting your valuable garden furniture or planting out new bulbs ready for the spring-time colours; take action from September start.