When you get to November there’s a mental change that takes place. Days are getting shorter – in fact we’re not long off the shortest day – a fact that has to be encouraging! And with shorting days comes the realization that the growing season has gone. What flows next can be a mixture of regret and remorse. Regret that you didn’t get everything planted or grown that you had hoped and endless plans for next year. However this mood doesn’t last for long. Enjoy the current season and use it as a base for next year. We have some fantastic cold nights and clear sunny days at the moment which are the essential elements for great autumn colour. It is a great time to clear up, sort out and get planting for next year. The warm moist soil is a brilliant encouragement for roots. There are two other things that help plants to get established – a slow release fertilizer such as bone meal, or a rose food and of great interest now are the addition of mycorrhizal fungi to the soil. These are friendly fungi which help roots work more effectively and so make sure the plant grows as well as it can. A totally environmentally sympathetic way of helping plants grow. Once the fungi are there then they act like a permanent fertiliser. They help plants to establish quicker and increase disease resistance above and below ground, help with water and nutrient uptake, help overcome rose replant sickness, help root systems reach further into the soil and improve the soil structure. A winner all round – this sounds like an massive plug for mycorrhiza but they are well proven and something that good gardeners should be catching on to.

Plant of the Month  ‘Fabulous foliage' with Euonymus fortunei

This is ‘lipstick gardening’ and a quick and easy way to pep up your patio or doorstep. With just a couple of well chosen, well placed planters you can make a new addition to your outside space that will put a spring in your step throughout winter. Euonymus fortunei cultivars are the ideal evergreen shrubs for the job with their bright, beautiful leaves and attractive growth habits. Choose a couple of these and some matching pots to give you patio an instant eye-catching makeover or make you shrub border glow.

This range of cultivars bring striking, confident colour even on the dullest winter day. With names like ‘Emerald Gaiety’ and ‘Emerald ‘n’ Gold’ or ‘Silver Queen’ you know it’s going to be good! These three shrubs are particularly fun examples. ‘Emerald Gaiety’ has green leaves with white margins that bear pink tinges in winter. This shrub is compact, reaching a height of approx 1 metre. Alternatively, go for ‘Emerald ‘n’ Gold’. The gorgeous, deep yellow margins and green hearts on the leaves of this plant never fail to get noticed. Looking like a trove of sparkling gold coins, this exciting small shrub is a great choice to take pride of place to greet you to and from your journey to work. The unmistakable star of the range has got to be ‘Silver Queen’. The glossy, dark green leaves with exquisite white margins bring a sense of affluence and style to the garden. Growing to a possible height of 2.5 metres and a width of 1.5 metres this shrub really is a winter treasure bringing all year round garden magic to your home.
These plants offer masses of value throughout the year. In addition to boosting the look of your garden or patio in early winter, when Christmas comes, you’ve already got outdoor colour to enhance your festive decorations. Plus, if you are planting your Euonymus fortunei in a shrub border, then how about adding some spring bulbs to change the scene as spring comes and take advantage of the sumptuous colourful backdrop your Euonymus can provide. Choose spring bulbs with mellow yellow, soft blue or crisp white flowers to create a really special seasonal show.

Euonymus fortunei cultivars not only make your garden feel like a million dollars, they are easy to have and keep too. The plants will cope quite happily in poor soil, are tough and of course, can stand winter frosts. They do enjoy a full sun position – especially if you really want to make the best of the variegation on the leaves. So get your gardening gloves back down off the shelf and pop to your garden centre this weekend. Planting some fabulous foliage is quick, easy and gorgeous – a fun winter project to bring some special plant magic to your garden on those grey days.

Jobs for the Month
Big cutting-back and getting-rid-of-it month. Good time to buy a shredder – prunings will make excellent compost or mulch once they’ve been through a shredder. Tough leaves will break down at 3 times their normal speed – and it is so much easier than burning them. The compost heap is surely the most important element in any garden. All the old herbaceous border debris can be put in. Do not try to compost the roots of perennial weeds such as couch grass, bindweed or dock, but the sappy stems of others will soon rot. I avoid adding seed heads – we have enough problems with those as it is. If you have nasty weeds – stack them in a black plastic bag and leave them for 6 months or more – should take care of most problems. Diseased woody material should be burnt. That’s another problem – the standard advice this year is to check your burn pile for hibernating wildlife before striking the match. Hibernating wildlife by definition are hard to find. A sleeping hedgehog doesn’t immediately catch the eye – so it is best not to hoard material to burn. Better to burn smaller amounts more frequently – but wait for the wind to be in the right direction! Smouldering bonfires get on everyone’s nerves.
Serious pruning can start for deciduous trees and shrubs as soon as they have gone into their dormant state. Evergreens are best left until the spring.

Lawns – now would be a good time to improve the drainage. Cut it lightly, rake it and spike it. Either rent a spiker, or use a clean garden fork. The aim is to have lots of holes through the top few inches of lawn. You can then brush in coarse sand to make good surface drainage. An autumn lawn feed is high in phosphate and potash which help produce tough plants with good root systems. Hard work but well worth doing.

The vegetable garden – clear away the old veg growth – add it to the compost heap. If you have a lot of very coarse stems, then either burn them or bury them in a trench for next year’s runner beans. Tidy up and 'rough' dig. Sow broad beans [‘Aquadulce’ or the dwarf variety ‘The Sutton’] to pick in May, and winter lettuce under cloches, to mature early spring. Garlic and winter onions should be in by now.  Look for bugs on the winter brassicas use a natural pyrethrum spray, or soapy water [soft soap not washing up liquid]. Use horticultural fleece to protect any root crops still in the ground – much easier than have to lift everything and find room to store them properly!