Peter Dowdall: Make the most of the room outside this autumn

Whether you're a gardening beginner or expert, Irish Examiner columnist Peter Dowdall has the answer to your questions

Fri, 30 Sep, 2022 - 13:00

Peter Dowdall

October is a touch-and-go month in the great outdoors. We may get a beautiful crisp month with blue skies like a continuation of what we have enjoyed during much of this September, in which case we get to truly enjoy another few weeks in the garden where being outside is a pleasure.

Equally, it could be wet and windy, bringing the winter forward and being out in the garden is less enjoyable and more like a chore.

Let’s hope it’s more Indian summer and less Irish winter as there are many jobs to do during this month. Personally, I’ve created quite a bit of space in my own garden allowing sunlight to reach spots that haven’t seen fresh air in years.

Irish Examiner gardening columnist Peter Dowdall. Picture: John Allen

I’m itching to move some established specimens to other spots throughout the garden and whilst some of them will have to wait until mid-winter, there are others, like perennials and less-established shrubs which can be moved soon.

My raspberry canes too produced lots of fresh fruit during the summer and now I must prune them to ensure a similar bounty next year. Don’t be put off by this job. To listen to some people and read some of the articles, you would think that this is a confusing task, only for the expert gardeners. Not so, in fact, it couldn’t be much easier, simply identify the canes which fruited this year and remove them to ground level.

These are quite easy to identify by now as they will appear woodier and browner than the fresher, green canes which are still pliant and flexible. Leave these green, fresh canes alone as they will produce fruit next summer.

In creating the space in my garden, I have had to be brutal and it kills me to do so. As many will know I moved garden last year and have been living with it since I moved in to see what’s what.

We may enjoy another few weeks in the garden. Picture: iStock

Now, after over 12 months and absolutely fed up with looking at a conifer hedge which was more brown than green and some other large shrubs which should never have been planted in this garden, I had to get stuck in.

It’s important, when doing a makeover like this, to be quite clear from the outset as to what style or type of garden is wanted.

I know that I don’t want a congested garden with everything growing into each other. That’s what was here, with little thought given at the time of planting, as to how it was going to look in 20 years’ time, now.

There are some stunning specimens which will remain, a weeping apple blossom, a myrtle, a weeping birch, a Golden King Holly, a stunning picea and mature, multi-stemmed Viburnum tinus.

I’m not a huge fan of the viburnum but, it’s a trade-off. Being brutal to this would come at too much of a cost, for many bees, birds and insects rely on this for food and refuge as it is now about 30 or more years old. It also brings maturity and offers some screening which would be lost if I removed it.

The ragged conifers are no more and the shrubs which would be more at home in a public park or roadside have also had the chop. These were easy decisions to make for they were just wrong here. It gets more difficult when choosing what to do with other subjects.

Azaleas have been taken out, along with some beautiful pieris and one or two Berberis Harlequin. I have held on to them, to re-use in the new planting. There are more to be moved during the winter. I wonder now how good I will be at living by my own advice, not to use something just because it’s here already.

The weeping crab apple which was so full of colour in the spring will soon be the perfect Halloween decoration, with its contorted form and autumn colour. Picture: iStock

To overplant this garden once more would be wrong. It would be unnecessary, for the specimens that remain now are so beautiful, elegant and majestic in their maturity, I need to be careful not to take from them.

I will use each one as a focal point in their own right and do some seasonal underplanting under all.

The garden isn’t just about flowers and nor is it about filling each square centimetre with plants. To do so stops us from enjoying the structure and the form, shape and texture of plants.

I love to admire the natural beauty of the trees, the myrtle, with its cloud-like balls of foliage, the weeping apple blossom, which in the spring is the prettiest pink umbrella and now, during the autumn, the shape and soon the autumn colour along with its small fruits, will make it quite the Halloween decoration along with the Birch which stands nearby.

A weeping birch in the winter, though naked of leaves is every bit as beautiful as when filled with foliage during the spring and summer, I had better keep an eye on it this month however, as you may or may not know, any witches in the area will be scouring, for it is the branches and stems of the birch that they use for their broomsticks.