Collect seeds of annual flowers including poppies, sweet peas and calendula and sow them now in modules. Overwinter them in a cold frame or unheated greenhouse and they will grow into small, sturdy plants that can be planted out next spring to give you bigger, better and earlier flowers than if you’d saved the seed to sow direct in March.

This method works for many annuals including cornflower, antirrhinum and Californian poppies. If you do want to save seed for spring then store it in envelopes in an air-tight container and keep somewhere cool.

TOP TIP
Cuttings taken now from this year’s pelargoniums will create fresh new plants for next year. Choose shoots without flowers, strip off the lower leaves, pot into a mix of compost and sand then keep the cuttings in a greenhouse or windowsill. Roots should form in around eight weeks.

Scottish Gardener:

WHAT TO DO NOW...

  • Keep deadheading roses and they will continue to flower for many months. Tie in long stems on climbers.
  • Protect ripening plums from wasps by hanging traps from the branches or covering entire trees in fleece.
  • Dry herbs to use over winter or chop into small pieces and freeze in ice cube trays to drop into soups and casseroles.
  • Trim lavender once the flowers have faded to prevent plants from becoming leggy.
  • Pick hydrangea heads, place in 2cm of water, and leave the heads to dry for winter decoration indoors.
  • Plant wallflowers now where they will flower next spring.
  • Cut out fruited canes on summer-flowering raspberries.
  • Pot up rooted strawberry runners.
  • Clear pond weeds and dead leaves from the surface of ponds to help keep the water clear.
  • Plant tubers of hardy cyclamen for flowers in autumn and winter.
  • Sow green manure on empty spaces in the vegetable plot.
  • Create a spring meadow by naturalising daffodils in grass. For best effect choose those with delicate flowers and stems, such as Narcissus obvallaris.
  • Plant kale and chard seedlings to provide leafy greens throughout winter.
  • In September take cuttings from roses, rooting them in tall pots of free-draining compost or in trenches with a layer of sand at the bottom. Grow on over winter and plant out next spring.