Home Gardening jobs November gardening jobs

November gardening jobs

Here are your November gardening jobs with links if I have more information on the subject. Do check October’s tasks to see if any are still relevant to do now if you’ve fallen behind or if the weather’s been bad. For the ideas behind how and when we do gardening tasks, visit the Gardening Jobs page.

Week 1

Plant bare-root deciduous hedging plants, trees and shrubs promptly, before they dry out. They can be heeled in for a short period if weather conditions are bad.

Lightly prune bush roses to prevent wind rock, as they are usually shallow rooted. Climbing roses should be pruned now at the very latest.

Pyracantha hedge November gardening jobs
Pyracantha being trained into a ‘bald spot’ in the hedge for autumn/winter interest

Tie wall shrubs and climbers on to their supports to protect them from wind damage. Prune off any growth that refuses to be trained.

November gardening jobs are about planning for the future – take hardwood cuttings of ornamental shrubs such as Cornus, Euonymus, Forsythia, Hydrangea, Ilex, and Salix.

Put fallen leaves on the compost heap or into separate pens for rotting down into leaf mould.

Bouquet lilies in pots November gardening jobs
Bouquet lilies in pots

Plant lilies in pots to be brought inside next spring to force them into an early display or left outside to flower naturally in summer.

One of the most important November gardening jobs – tulips can now go in. Species tulips naturalise, but showier varieties are best treated as bedding and replaced every year.

Apply an autumn mulch to protect plants that are borderline hardy such as Agapanthus, Kniphofia (red hot pokers) and Phygelius. The plants’ own leaves, e.g. Kniphofia, can be tied up and used as protection for the crowns underneath.

Drive bed mulched in March November gardening jobs
Planning ahead: drive bed mulched

A wet autumn can make clay soils unworkable until spring. Mulching will help to improve and maintain soil structure.

Lift and store dahlias, cannas and tuberous bedding begonias that have been hit by the first frosts.

Make sure that you have not forgotten any of your tender plants and bulbs – they need to be brought inside or into a heated greenhouse over the winter.

Freshly-planted Belfast sink with Sempervivum, Delosperma and Saxifraga November gardening jobs
Freshly-planted Belfast sink with Sempervivum, Delosperma and Saxifraga

Protect alpines from the wet, if you have not done so already.

In mild weather, weeds will still appear. Hoe regularly to keep them in check.

Group tropical houseplants on trays of wet gravel for more humidity when the central heating comes on.

Geraniums November gardening jobs
Going to sleep – geraniums taken indoors and cut back

Pelargoniums (geraniums) can be cut back, de-leaved, watered less, not fed, and kept relatively dormant and just moist, over the winter. Re-potting, watering and feeding in the spring will bring them back into active growth. They should be kept at around 10°C (50°F) while dormant, although mine have endured much lower temperatures than that.

When bringing plants indoors, check them for pests and diseases. Poor-looking plants can always be tipped out of the pot to check their rootballs for signs of over or under-watering, or for soil pests like vine weevil larvae.

Check any forced bulbs (e.g. hyacinths and Paper White daffodils). When they have made about 2.5cm (1in) growth, bring them into a light, cool room or frost-free greenhouse to grow on. When flower buds appear, they can be brought into warmer rooms.


Rose Leah Tutu, Sept 17 November gardening jobs
Rose Leah Tutu

Week 2

It is an ideal time to plant roses. Avoid planting in areas where roses were previously growing otherwise new introductions may suffer from replant diseases (rose sickness).

This is also a good time to transplant trees and shrubs growing in unsuitable positions. However, if they are more than a couple of years old, you are unlikely to be able to remove an intact enough rootball to ensure the plant’s survival in its new position, and you may be best advised to leave well alone.

Check tree stakes and ties are secure and will withstand the winter weather; make sure that ties are not strangling trunks or branches – they may need loosening.

Coral spot on a dead branch November gardening jobs
Coral spot on a dead branch

Coral spot appears in deciduous hedges, shrubs, and trees, connected with poor ventilation and congested, un-pruned twiggy growth. It is more a sign of unsuitable conditions than a serious pathogen in itself.

Now is the last chance to plant out winter bedding. You could try wallflowers, forget-me-nots, Bellis, Primula, Viola (winter pansies) and other spring bedding plants, planting them into well-prepared ground, or pots of suitable compost.

Cut down faded herbaceous perennials and add them to the compost heap, or leave them as they are, as the stems provide hibernation places for insects. Leave Penstemons (except for deadheading) until the spring. Mulch over the crowns in colder areas.

Helleborus niger (Christmas rose) November gardening jobs
Helleborus niger (Christmas rose)

Hellebores rarely flower naturally by Christmas, despite their common name of Christmas rose. Encourage earlier flowering by covering them with cloches, or potting them up and bringing them into a warm greenhouse.

Cover large tubs at risk of cracking in the frost with bubble wrap, hessian or fleece, to insulate them over the winter.

Remove barley straw from pond and add to the compost heap. Let them sit by the edge of the pond for 24 hours before composting, so that pond insects can find their way back into the water.

Greenhouse after cleaning
Greenhouse after cleaning (but forgot to remove tomatoes)

Complete cleaning out spent crops from the greenhouse, if not yet done. Clean and disinfect the greenhouse structures with Jeyes Fluid or Citrox.


Week 3

NOTE – as the gardening year winds down, work according to what the weather will let you do. If you’ve fallen behind, check the last couple of weeks of jobs – you probably still can do some of them.

You can still order and plant container trees and shrubs, and large semi-mature specimens for planting later in the winter.

Buddleja, July 17
Buddleja davidii

Cut back shrubs normally pruned hard in spring – such as Buddleja davidii, Cornus alba, and Lavatera by half now, to prevent wind rock.

Tree and shrub seeds and berries can be harvested and sown, once they are ripe.

One of the most vital November gardening jobs is to ensure garden hygiene to control and prevent disease. Rake up and NEVER compost infected leaves, such as black spot on roses, or scab on apples and pears.

Scab on an apple
Scab on an apple

Toadstools are often visible now, especially honey fungus. The toadstools appear on, or at the bases of, affected trees. Similar toadstools in beds or lawns are more likely to be harmless fungi that live on dead material and pose no threat.

Lift and divide overgrown clumps of herbaceous perennials, or leave them until spring. Cover borderline hardy plants with fleece sacks to protect them from the worst of any winter weather, especially if still young.

Cut back ornamental grasses and bamboos.

George on the prowl, Oct 8
George on the prowl

Take root cuttings now and throughout winter. Papaver (perennial poppies), Verbascum (mullein) and Phlox are suitable examples.

Digging the soil will expose pest larvae and eggs to birds and frosts, as well as clearing weeds and improving soil structure.

Around ponds, remove the last of the dead foliage. You can still divide hardy waterlilies and cut back overgrown marginal plants.

Dying Rodgersia and sedge leaves around the pond
Dying Rodgersia and sedge leaves around the pond

Tender plants should already have been brought into a frost-free greenhouse until the risk of frost has passed.


Week 4

Protect newly planted trees, hedges, and shrubs from wind and cold – a netting windbreak should suffice.

Pack straw or bracken around deciduous plants to protect them from frost. A frame with clear polythene stretched over it can do a similar job without blocking light from evergreens, but don’t let the polythene touch the foliage.

Pruning and renovation of some deciduous trees, shrubs, and hedges, such as beech, can be carried out from now – you can see the framework more easily. Don’t prune tender plants or Prunus species (e.g. ornamental cherries, plums, and almonds), in case of silver leaf disease. Leave evergreens until the spring.

Bare Whitebeam, still with a few berries attached
Bare Whitebeam, still with a few berries attached

When pruning trees and shrubs, examine branches for signs of disease. Remove small cankers, dieback, and rotten, hollow stumps before they spread.

If your trees are too large for you to manage the pruning alone, then you may need a tree surgeon. Otherwise, take care not to damage the tree when sawing off thicker branches.

If it snows, brush it gently off the branches of conifers. Heavy snowfall can splay branches and spoil the shape of the tree.

Stalwart yellow pansy
Stalwart yellow pansy

Phytophthora root rots can cause dieback on mature trees and shrubs. Wet winter weather and poorly drained soils are likely to encourage this problem on susceptible woody plants. Look out for crown rot and brown rots (sclerotinia) on dormant perennials, especially if you are on a clay soil.

Watch out for downy mildew and black spot on winter pansies.

Indoors, pot up Hippeastrum (Amaryllis) bulbs, and bring them back into active growth with regular watering and feeding.

Cactus
Opuntia – or prickly pear

Cacti and succulents need a period of dormancy over the winter: keep them barely moist, and do not feed. Start them back into growth next spring.

Reduce watering and feeding of houseplants as the days shorten.

For gardening jobs in December, visit my week-by-week page. To catch up, visit October’s jobs.

November gardening jobs updated June 2022