October
In October, we start cutting back herbaceous borders that have finished flowering. As we have so many borders, we make a start now, which gives us the opportunity to split and move herbaceous perennials. The autumn months generally means wetter conditions, and soil temperatures are still on the warmish side, so we’re able to easily move/split perennials without an awful lot of aftercare. If you’re digging up plants and rearranging a border before it’s cut back, you have the advantage of assessing the heights of the different plants and how they work together.
Perhaps counterintuitively, we take many greenwood cuttings in September and even early October; it’s one of our main propagating times. This is mainly because the wetter conditions allow us to take lovely, fully turgid cuttings that seem to root better. Surprisingly there’s plenty of new growth to take cuttings from (especially when you do a little gentle cutting back in late summer to trigger new growth). Right now, the greenhouse is full of many pots, each with 20/25 cuttings. We save space in the greenhouse by not potting these on until the spring.
