Late summer heading into Autumn can be a wonderful time for a gardener. If you grow fruits and vegetables, or even your own plants and flowers, many will be coming to full fruition at this time of year after a long, warm growing season.

Whether you’re an experienced gardener with a mature garden full of growing plants, or you’re a beginner keen for some gardening tips, our gardening guide should give you some useful tips and tricks for gardening at this time of year.

Lawns and grasses

Let’s start with what can often be the largest surface area in a garden, whether it’s a small garden or large. We’ve had plenty of dry, arid days during August 2021, and you may have found yourself out with the garden hose or watering can, tending parched looking grass. Heading from summer into autumn, this is a good time to cut long grasses and to keep lawns trimmed quite short.

Having had a lot of use over the summer months, now can be a good time to replace your garden hose. If it gets packed away until next summer, you may take it out to find it’s frayed and developed holes. Our Green Blade 3 Ply Reinforced Hose Pipe is really popular.

Plants and flowers

For any summer flowers growing, regular dead-heading will keep them looking their best and producing flowers as long as possible. This especially applies to dahlias, who will keep flowering right into Autumn. Their buds are easy to spot - they are pointed and cone shaped compared to the roundness of fresh buds.

Roses - ever popular in this part of the world and many will be firmly in bloom at the end of the summer. Roses need fertile soil that holds plenty of moisture. The Royal Horticultural Society advises that although the water in the soil is usually enough to sustain most roses, during hot dry spells, they may need additional water, so make sure your water can is always at your side when tending your roses. Prune extensively in winter to keep them going. Shrub roses are a versatile choice; if they’re beside a fence, you can fan out their branches to imitate the effect of a climber!

Leading gardening experts agree that this is an important time too for keeping all plants growing in containers well watered. If you are growing plants in pots and containers, make sure to feed and water them regularly, using your water can or even garden hose.

Fruit and vegetables

Tomatoes and chillies all love the heat, so they should be thriving, if not ready to pick. If you grow peppers or aubergines, they should be in their element right now too, having had a long summer of long, hot days and shorter nights. Blackberries, raspberries, blueberries and plums all come into harvest at the end of the summer, so there will be fruit salads and desserts aplenty!

Potatoes should also be ripe for digging right now, so now would be a good time to invest in some new shovels if yours are looking a bit tired. A garden shovel with a long handle and a sturdy, wide mouth like our Square Mouth Shovel and Green Blade Digging Spade are good for both harvesting and for planting.