Gardening Month by Month: Gardening in November

Every time you look outside your window the weather seems to be getting worse than the day before. If the rain and high winds weren’t enough, the air is also cold enough to hurt your skin as soon as you step into the garden.

You can’t sit around and do nothing as there are lots of jobs to be done before the end of the month. Gardening in November is difficult and you’ll need to force yourself outside, but here are the top tasks you’ll need to complete once you’re out there.

Gardening calendar: Gardening in November

Flowers

1 – Lift Plant Pots Off The Ground: It’s impossible to tell how much rain we’ll see over winter, but if there is lots your plant pots could end up waterlogged. It would be a wise move to lift them off the ground and insulate them.

2 – Plant Tulip Bulbs: I’m sure you’ll want lovely tulips in your garden once winter has come and gone. If you’d like to see them next spring, now is the perfect time to start planting the bulbs.

3 – Prune Your Roses: You don’t want the wind to destroy the roots of your roses by causing the stems to swing around. You can limit the amount of damage by pruning the roses to make them more resistant to the wind.

4 – Put Netting Over Brassicas: When you have brassicas in your garden and there are pigeons around it’s going to cause trouble. You can put a stop to it by laying netting over them.

5 – Plant Winter Bedding: You might not get another chance if we’re unfortunate enough to have a white winter, so when gardening in November plant your winter bedding before time runs out.

Fruits And Vegetables

1 – Encouraging Winter Birds: Before you take care of your own fruits, vegetables, and nuts you should remember to put bird feed out. It will encourage the winter birds to flock into your garden.

2 – Protect Your Fruit Trees: Moths can be a problem during winter and they can cause a lot of damage to your fruit trees. To prevent this from happening you can wrap grease bands around the trunks of the trees.

3 – Start Growing Mushrooms: If you’ve never tried growing mushrooms before now is a good time to set it up. You also have the option of growing your mushroom log indoors.

4 – Plant Your Berries: Strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, blackberries, and currants can now be planted. You’ll have a garden full of beautiful berries you can eat next year.

5 – Under Your Cloches: Hopefully you already have cloches in your garden, because you’ll be able to plant spring onions and pak choi underneath them during the winter months.

Trees, Shrubs, And Lawns

1 – Deal With Fallen Leaves: There will still be a lot of leaves lying around on your lawn, in ponds, and scattered throughout your beds. Now you can finally get rid of them before they’re covered in snow. You can do it manually or buy one of the leaf blowers vacuum mulchers that are on the UK market.

2 – Build A Bonfire: If you’re allowed to build a fire in the area where you live, you can burn everything you can’t put on the compost heap. If you can’t do it in your garden there will be lots around on the 5th. Alternatively, you can buy a good garden incinerator

3 – Remove Any Toadstools: It’s around this time of year you’ll begin to see toadstools on your lawn. Although they won’t cause much fungal problems, it’s always best to get rid of them anyway.

4 – Remove Any Algae Too: This problem should only occur if your lawn doesn’t have good drainage and there is lots of shade. If any algae has formed you should remove it from the grass.

5 – Tree And Shrub Transplant: You’ll already know if any trees and shrubs are growing in less than ideal locations inside your garden. Now is the time to move them to more suitable locations.