The Garden House Tasks for October

Posted:14 October 2025

Please bear in mind these tasks are not a comprehensive look at all garden aspects, but relate directly to our monthly work in the Garden House garden, inspiring and teaching the volunteers, students and Friday group gardeners who get stuck in and support the development of this unique Brighton garden.

• Prick out hardy annuals and pot on into 7cm pots
• Bring in scented-leaf pelargoniums still outside and pot them up as winter houseplants. Most will remain happily on a sunny window ledge for much of the winter, to be cut back early next spring. However, the latest advice from Fibrex Nursery is to cut them back by half now, and remove all the leaves – you can use the cut back stems for cuttings
• Continue  to plant spring bulbs while the ground is still warm, to give them the longest possible growing time ahead of next year. Alliums can also be planted while the soil is still a little warm in early-mid Autumn – you can leave tulips until November or December
• Begin planting up containers with bulb lasagnes with Erysimum (wallflowers), Myosotis. (forget-me-nots) or Violas on top to give interest until the bulbs push through
• Remove Dahlias and Gladioli from pots and store them in a frost free place – store Dahlias upside down to drain the tubers – you can store them in shredded paper that is slightly damp to stop them from desiccating
• Lift, divide and replant congested clumps of perennials. Use two garden forks back to back to split larger clumps.
• Prune climbing and rambling roses: remove the older stems of ramblers (these flower on old wood)  and cut down to the ground – this will promote new growth from below.  Cut back any dead, diseased or damaged branches to the ground or a healthy bud. Nearly all climbers, (flowering on new wood) offer more than one flush of flowers, and the time to prune is from autumn and through winter while the rose is dormant, unlike rambling roses, which can be pruned back hard more readily, it’s only the side shoots of climbing roses that are pruned.
• Bring tender plants, eg. pelargoniums, Coleus (syn. Plectranthus) out of the frost and and take cuttings
• Plant evergreen shrubs and climbers
• Clean greenhouse
• Collect fallen leaves and store in hessian bags or old compost bags with holes, or create a leaf litter bin with chicken wire.
• Continue to collect seeds for sowing in the spring
• Last chance to mow lawns and prune hedges