Plant tulips for a colourful display, and Narcissus ‘Pueblo’ for the Spring Show competition
1. Time to get those tulips planted either in pots or in the ground. If planting in the ground plant deeply and remember to protect from squirrels who see them as a delicacy. If you don’t have time this month even next month is not too late so don’t worry.
2. Try and get all other bulbs planted so they can get their roots down for the winter. Don’t forget to plant your Narcissus ‘Pueblo’ bulbs in a pot for the Spring Show competition.
With nights drawing in and a chill in the air for our October meeting, it was a pleasure to welcome Anne Barnard of Rose Cottage Plants for her talk ‘Bulbs for the Adventurous Gardener’: an introduction to some of the newer and less well known spring and early summer bulbs with advice on how to grow them *.
Our tour through the bulb year started with Crocus. Although most appear late winter to early spring, a few like Crocus speciosus ‘Albus’ are Autumn flowering. This looks good grown through a dark leaved Heuchera, its leaves protecting bulbs from squirrels and mice.
Sow sweetpeas and plant Narcissus bulbs for beautiful flowers in 2027
1. You can sow some sweetpeas now for an early start next year. Sow in root trainers or sow five seeds to a 3″ (9cm) pot and keep in warmth until germinated, then keep in an unheated greenhouse, coldframe or cool room until spring. Sweetpeas are pretty hardy. A sheltered corner of the garden may work too.
2. Plant Narcissus and daffodils now so they have a chance to make good roots for a spring flowering. If planting in soil plant as deeply as you can at about three times their depth.
Get more Dahlia flowers by regular deadheading, make comfrey tea plant food, and learn from Beth Chatto’s dry garden
1. Keep cutting or dead heading your Dahlias to keep the flowers coming, hopefully into October. Give them a weekly feed too.
2. It’s not too late to make some comfrey tea to feed your plants and veg. Just cut up handfuls of leaves and leave in a bucket with some water and a weight to hold it down. Try to cover the bucket as the smell is very unpleasant, then dilute 1/10 in water and aim at the base of plants you are trying to keep going.
3. I think this year we need to carry out a review of very dry areas in our gardens and replant with drought tolerant plants. If you made the visit to Beth Chatto her dry garden is an excellent example. I have a bank at the back of my garden and half of it looks very sad or even dead so I’ll be replanting some of it in the spring if things don’t come through.
It was a pleasure to welcome Selina Ozanne to our August meeting to hear about her work as Head Gardener for The Exchange, Erith, a community led arts and craft organisation based in the town’s former Carnegie library.
The refurbished listed building is now home to craft production workshops, a cafe and shop, along with a varied programme of community events.
The Exchange gardens were designed by Chelsea Gold medal winner Sarah Price. The site has various challenges from a sloping roadside front garden exposed to sun and wind from the Thames, to a woodland-edge rear garden with a steep incline. Sarah’s design pulls together these diverse elements together using sustainable materials and matrix planting to make the garden flow coherently in a way that everyone can access.
1. There’s still time to direct sow some annuals like Cerinthe, Nasturtium, Nigella and Calendula for late flowering. Remember to thin out once germinated for decent size flowers.
Cerinthe (honeywort), Nigella (love in the mist) and Calendula (pot marigold) can all still be sown now
2. Lily beetles are rife this year so be vigilant as they can devastate in no time (and they enjoy fritillaries too).
1. At this time of year when the weather is warm early Dutch honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum) and Lonicera americana are a magnet for night-flying moths attracted by the spicy scent, so try growing one if you have the space.
2. If seedlings and cuttings are growing away well, put them outside during the day to harden off then bring them in at night if the weather is cold.
3. Iris are in spectacular full flower now, but be sure to keep their rhizomes free from weeds so they get baked by the sun which will aid flowering next year.
At our January meeting, members were asked to share – anonymously – their garden-related resolutions for the coming year. In addition, the CABAHS Committee put forward a suggestion for a CABAHS-wide resolution for 2026 (more on this in a separate post).
A fine, wise, and hopefully achievable range of planned actions were submitted, with members resolving to complete practical tasks that are easily put off or forgotten, right through to adjusting their attitudes / approaches to their gardens.
As we come up to Christmas and the end of 2025, this is a great time to look back at how the ‘Old Pond Garden’ (OPG) project has fared this year.
Tree of Heaven, Ailanthus altissima, dressed up for Christmas (plus 27 garden volunteers!)
Of course, it’s not just the ‘Old Pond Garden’ project any longer, as volunteer work now covers the whole estate, but we are still fond of the OPG tag. Since April, the Garden Volunteer scheme has been run by Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust (RGHT), however considering 80% of volunteers are also CABAHS members, it’s fair to say we are still very interested and still very involved.
Sharon has taken on the crucial role of Volunteer Lead for RGHT and works with Head Gardener Jason to make sure everything runs smoothly. She posts lovely updates on the garden team’s WhatsApp after every session, keeping us all on track, and sends a report off to RGHT every month.
Here are some highlights picked from Sharon’s reports of the past few months, I make no apology that this is a rather long post – we have done a lot!
