Peter Dowdall outlines four autumn garden jobs to focus on 

Your garden's stabilising influence is welcome now more than ever, whether you're a beginner or a seasoned horticulturalist

Now is the time to plant bulbs for masses of spring colour next year. Picture: iStock

That old Chinese warning “may you live in interesting times” has come to my mind nearly every day as I imagine it has for many others too over the last six or seven months. While what is happening in the world at large this year is unsettling at best and tragic at worst, I do find the garden a great mothership to return to.

It has a stabilising influence and we need that now more than ever. So many people have started on their journey down the gardening path since lockdown and I hope many, if not all, will retain this new-found interest. For some, it will germinate and develop into a passion and it is extremely heartening to see so many children dipping their green fingers in the soil this year, perhaps for the first time.