Are there fairies at the bottom of your garden?

Steffie Shields commends October’s gardening chores and rewards.

This year’s sultry summer has desiccated leaves earlier than normal, causing a certain angst. I dread losing any of our favourite trees and shrubs, almost as sad as losing one’s close friends. Thankfully, most are reasonably robust and, like humans, persevere whatever the weather throws at them.

We gave the old Pyracantha ‘Firethorn’ we inherited on the west wall of our house a vigorous makeover last autumn. Its lethal long thorns make pruning out dead branches a challenge, but do not disturb our local blackbird.

A reliable decorative shrub for any garden, June saw it healthily laden with darling white blossoms.
Since September arrived, another reward, multitudes of bright orange berries have been ‘on fire’ beside my study window. Mr Blackbird visits regularly for weeks to gobble down this feast!

This firethorn also proves a useful prop come December. Somehow my husband manages to twine a single strand of festive lights into a twinkling Christmas-tree silhouette.

Yet I much prefer the hollyberry, which might have arrived courtesy of our resident blackbird, or else the colony of pigeons that roost in a native cherry tree nearby. First introduced from China in 1898, this Cotoneaster bullatus has now naturalised throughout Europe’s woodlands.

Clusters of berries turning attractive shiny red from August through to autumn alternate with wrinkled green leaves on arching branches, more food for local wildlife. It needs an occasional trim as it tends to lean towards the light.

Weather watching
Far from being a depressing back end to 2025, October always seems perfect for gardening. A thicker sweater may be needed but the air is invigorating. Dodge the odd rain shower and enjoy those sudden enchanting rainbows.

As you labour outside, and not at all obvious, your shrubs and trees will be just as busy ‘communicating’ underground, making good use of all summer’s energy by forming thousands of buds ready to spring next year.

Time for gardeners to be equally energised, before temperatures dip drastically, when most human and plant activities will shut down. Wrap fruit trees with grease bands to prevent against pests – insects, caterpillars and winter moth larvae climbing up to overwinter.

Place tired hostas in containers on their side to prevent them rotting from winter rainwater. Don’t forget to remove summer planting in patio pots and replace them with next year’s spring show, especially tulips, another heart-warming job.

This month will see Mike bring out his garden push vacuum. Boys love their toys! A gadget well worth the investment, it requires much less effort than tidying with a rake. Hoovering up scattered leaves and debris, it mulches them efficiently, saving backache. Both lawn and garden are made tidier in almost a trice.

Emptying the canvas bag’s shredded and compressed contents to rot down in a secluded corner of the garden is as reassuring as money in the bank. The odd passing hedgehog will appreciate our lucrative pile too!

Care and cuttings
Ensure evergreen shrubs are shaped into gratifying curvaceous form to sharpen up winter views. Shafts of sunlight will pick up glorious autumn colours causing us to pause and appreciate the scene – far more uplifting than surfing images, hunched immobile over our phone apps. Those leaves that have managed to cling on, topped up with sugar in lengthy stretches of sunshine promise a fine show.

My faithful spindle tree, Euonymus alatus ‘Compactus’ requires no intervention or care. Just like this year’s pumpkins ripening far too early, will its delicate green leaves be transformed before the end of September?

Usually an October treat, its marvellous rosy-crimson hues are joyous, sandwiched between golden hazelnut foliage and a darkening copper beech, our “nutty conversation corner” near the summerhouse.

Why have I never thought to try and propagate this star? This fairy tree’s attractive winged orange seeds might be plentiful this year, if our single Victoria plum tree is anything to go by, with a bumper harvest blessing, an incredible 50 pounds of fruit. I shall give it a go both from cuttings and from seed with my home-made compost, and report back. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Recently, the National Trust has taken over the care of Munstead Wood, in Surrey, a garden famous as the home of the celebrated Victorian Arts and Crafts garden designer and photographer Gertrude Jekyll (1843 –1932). Jekyll’s breath-taking planting artistry and colour combinations, particularly in herbaceous borders in full sun, remain much-admired. She gave designs for several clients in Lincolnshire including at Thorpe Hall, Stoke Rochford Hall and Pine Trees in Sleaford.

Years ago, I remember visiting Munstead Wood. Gertrude chose to keep various corners of her garden for shade-loving plants; for instance, a ‘fernery’ for ferns, another for her hosta collection, and one for October-flowering asters. Inspired by a Garden Museum Zoom talk recently, with images of Monet’s garden, I made a ‘May Corner’ solely for bearded iris to bask in full sun.

So the next project will be Gertrude’s idea for a separate Michaelmas fairyland corner. I will transplant various smiling, daisy-face asters, originally from New England and New York, communing together in dappled semi-shade, either side of a winding path.

Magical places
Our garden’s north boundary is ornamented by a superb veteran tree, Robinia pseudoacacia, another American introduction, often called false acacia, black or yellow locust. Its textured trunk is sculpted like Gothic architecture. Delicate panicles of hanging white blossom add welcome wisps of fragrance on early summer breezes. Apparently also useful for erosion prevention, it stands on the edge of a deciduous grove together with a huge sycamore, two towering larches and a silvery-leaved white willow.

Reverend Charles Bethell Otley (1792-1867), vicar of Welby from 1833, moving to his new Regency rectory probably planted the grove to protect his orchard from cold north winds and to frame his view of St Bartholomew’s church, with the village below. A member of the Royal Society of Watercolourists, he had an eye for planting trees.

In 1999 we moved into Otley’s Old Orchard, our forever home. Not long afterwards, clearing overgrown nettles and brambles, a young shoot appeared some twelve yards away, a sucker from that ancient pseudoacacia. Reader, we let it grow!

Known to be fast-growing, this feathery tree now almost fully-grown features in the view from our kitchen window. Mike rebuilt the broken drystone wall and added a stone seat, with a couple of redundant paving stones, “a proposal point” conveniently shaded by our free tree. One of my box cuttings has become a well-rounded evergreen bush. I also spread a few autumn-flowering cyclamen bulbs requiring no further maintenance and inherited from our garden’s previous owners.

Delightfully delicate, tiny sugar-pink and white cyclamen flowers nodding amongst heart-shaped ivy-like leaves begin to appear in August, flowering through to winter frosts. To spy them encircling and dancing round our young Robinia is rewarding beyond measure.

Are there such fairies multiplying as if by magic at the bottom of your garden? Anyone who is a romantic should have just such a magical place.

We Recommend

Pots are kiln it at auction!

Artists near and far

Garden wall art and dumbfounding dahlias

An idyllic Wolds residence

Lots go off with a bang

The August Tree

View all