November
Top tips for growing flowers; chrysanthemums, bulbs and to lift or not to lift?
The November garden is in slow retreat with plants creating a spiders playground whilst Chrysanthemums are hitting their stride like fireworks exploding with colour. These flowers are some of my current favourites for their scent, hardy attitude and tonal qualities. As the garden year crosses over between the last performances of some and a curtain call from roses, the bulk of the month is in preparing for the next growing season.
In the borders, I leave the jumble of leaves and stems, the ‘morning after the night before’ where the summer’s flowers shrink towards the earth. Don’t cut these back; the sunrise is a welcome breakfast treat, glistening behind grasses and perennials such as eupatoriums, asters and echinaceas, glistening, creating long shadows. If you don’t love a decaying border, try to. The material will protect the crowns of the plants from wet winter weather, providing food and home for wildlife. You’ll know when it’s the right time to cut back, plants will tell you with green growth in the spring.
Usually the task of the month is to lift all our dahlias but I am leaving them in this autumn. Instead, I will cut the stems down and cover with a bucket of compost. The stem of a dahlia is like a straw - great in the summer, but in freezing weather will cause the dahlia tuber to swell with frozen water then rot as it defrosts. The aim of the game is to make sure they don’t sit in the wet. Still working out how to decide whether to lift or not to lift?
There is still plenty of time to plant bulbs for the spring but only after a couple of frosts should you plant tulips. I admit that my love affair for tulips has waned. Thinking sustainably as a flower farmer, tulips take years to mature and flower; and they do so on a single stem which means that when I cut, there is no leaf to feed the bulb for future flowers. We were proud that we grew these bulbs as annuals and threw them to the compost heap. Now I am uncomfortable with how much resources and growing needs to happen for that one cut flower.
Instead I am moving towards multi stemmed varieties or simply perrenializing in the long border for my delight rather than grow as a crop. Instead, my adoration for the narcissus sees no bounds as yet. They return year after year, scented with so many varieties, shapes, sizes and colours to celebrate.
If you are wondering where you might have room for these or indeed any spring bulb, look beyond the border or pots; consider the lawn. A spring meadow is the easiest of all meadows to create, saves you some effort early in the year and is enchanting. Give the lawn it’s last cut this month and simply throw bulbs at the grass and plant them where they land or lift squares of turf, plant and lay back the grass like a duvet over them. Naturalising looks best when only one or two varieties flower at the same time - starting with snowdrops, then crocus, scilla and ending with poet’s narcissus. Try to plant in generous drifts and leave space for a meandering mown path through. Then enjoy the display as it rises between January and the grass flowering with the narcissus in May. Then until you can no longer bear the mess, mow the grass down lower and lower as the summer goes on.
Time to rest and recuperate like a bulb, to emerge next year, bright and fantastic!
NOVEMBER FLOWER GROWING TASKS
Autumn Sown Sweet Peas.
Pinch out sweet peas and keep in a cool sheltered position for early spring flowers. The pinched out tops can be rooted in water and planted too!
Continue to plant spring bulbs.
Snowdrops, narcissus (tiny ones), anemone blanda, bluebells are perfect spring carpets for beneath shrubs and trees. Throw them across the soil and plant at a depth, twice their heights. Wait until a couple of good frosts before planting Tulips (they are becoming one to plant from December onwards with out milder autumns). It’s a real act of hope and trust hiding bulbs but do it anyway. Like many things in life eh?
Continue to plant bulbs to force.
Too late for a Christmas display but I love the emerging shoots through moss and twigs, in terracotta pots, ancient ceramics and sparkling glass bulbs. In fact I think I prefer that when they flower! A vision of delayed gratitude and hope. Lay newspaper at the bottom of anything precious, add grit then peat free bulb compost or rich fibrous homemade compost and plant. Many bulbs will flowers simply with their roots searching into water. Experiment!
Leave things alone
If you don’t need to, leave plants well alone now. Weeds too. Yes, it looks an awful mess but those plants continue to feed and protect the soil, preventing erosion. They will be quick to clear in the spring as soon as you need to plant out. If you have dire perennial weeks then simply cover with cardboard and compost and leave the worms to do the work instead. Why disturb the soil if we don’t have to.I know it’s hard and looks dire but sit on your hands with this one.
Collect and make a compost heap.
Save and start laying up those cleared plants, cardboard, rose prunings, leaves, roots from those plants divided, old compost from pots et al for a compost heap.
Harvesting
Shrubs - Before the frosts, there are still leaves on physocarpus, berry foliage, last of cornus and cherry to cherish.
Perennials - Few left but I am cutting salvias, persicaria and chrysanthemums. Grasses, miscanthus, pennisteum and calamagrostis (more on all these ‘essentials’ here.)
Annuals - These are over now save a few cosmos with stamina and fortitude. I still have zinnias in the polytunnel which is wonderful with bits and bobs still going. Have a root about, you might be surprised what you can gather still.
Dried - I have very few dried stems but I’ve saved crocosmia stems, honesty, strawflowers, limonium and many grasses.
Want to join me on growing cut flowers each week? Confused about where to begin and need help on deciding what, when and how? Come along for the ride, every Tuesday direct into your inbox. Each month there is a floral recipe with combinations and methods for growing, cutting and conditioning for you gather the same. With a rich library of support and resource which you’ll have full access to with a 14 day free trial. It’s all about the journey, letting go of outcome and enjoying the results of the harvest. Much more than the sum of its parts.
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