November 2020
Over 30 years ago I was making a large garden about 20 miles from here in the Herefordshire countryside (the story of which I told which I wrote about in ‘The Prickotty Bush’ pub 1990. Spoiler alert: it ended badly). Part of my rather grandiose plans were to carve the steep hillside into a series of terraces with a large lawn, rose terrace, bowling green and herb garden. It had rained for most of October but I gambled on November being dominated by hard frosts that would enable us to move the thousands of tons of soil for day after day without creating a quagmire. It was not much of a risk because until then hard frost always came around the second week of November and stayed for a month. It was a weather pattern that had been consistent for all my life up until that point.
But climate change has meant that this would be an absurd gamble now. I now look back on those clear frosty days with nostalgia. As I write this the temperature is mild between the showers and November has become a month of rain that veers from unseasonably warmth to a damp chilliness as the days get shorter and shorter.
The effect on the garden is twofold. On the one hand the pressure to protect tender plants such as our cannas, bananas, fuchsias or citrus in pots has eased off. We now have an extra few weeks to do that work. But on the other hand the dampness encourages and spreads fungal problems such as box blight.
However climate change has also meant that autumnal colour has been pushed back a week or so and now the best display of autumn leaves is usually at the beginning of November, rising to a crescendo one perfect sunny day and then disappearing overnight as wind and rain sends the leaves streaming to the ground.
However, November is the month to get the garden in order because soon enough winter weather, be it snow, ice, wind or rain, will come and make it difficult for garden and gardener alike.
Excerpt from ‘MY GARDEN WORLD’ November:
BARN OWLS
I wish I could say I regularly saw barn owls here but I have not done so over the past 30 years. However, about ten years ago, for about a month, I would see one about half an hour before dusk, flying in exactly the same line and height along the edge of the garden, heading out to the tussocky, half-grazed fields that would have been its best bet for voles.
But I do quite often see one from the car on my way to the farm, around the same half-mile stretch of road, flying at hedge height in the last light of the day before dusk.
But in my childhood, one of the standard party tricks was to take visitors ‘up to see the owls’. This involved a mile-long walk with the dogs up the muddy lane opposite our garden to a deserted farm. My mother remembered when the farm was working and the farmer’s daughter would walk down these lanes to the village school, a daily two-mile, cross-country solitary trip for a seven-year-old. But that was before the war and by the 1960s, the ceilings were falling through, elder grew from the top of the chimneys, windows were smashed and weeds grew through the concrete of the milking stalls. However, in both an upstairs bedroom of one of the two cottages and high up in the lovely old barn, were barn owl nests. We would creep into the big open door of the barn and look up above the bales where we would hear a sneezing, wheezing, snoring sound and sometimes see three or four young owlets looking down at us, and in winter one or two adults, who would silently slip away through a gap in the wall. They were a fixture. It was where they lived and we treated it like making a social call.
But even as a very young boy I was aware of the specialness of them, the beauty and the slight fear, their utterly silent flight and ghostly whiteness, and the curious sounds they made. We also were well aware of the kudos attached to being able to summon them on cue.
That was over 50 years ago. Since then, barn owls have suffered, not least through the loss of breeding sites like that derelict farm which has now been razed. Of almost all British birds, barn owls are the most dependant on barns and unoccupied buildings for nesting.
They hunt with a slow, quartering flight, searching for prey – especially voles – on the ground. This slow, almost silent flight comes from their very low wing loading, meaning that the bird has exceptionally large wings in proportion to its weight. On top of that, their feathers are very flexible, which aids manoeuvring at slow speeds, and the silence is due to a comb-like structure on the leading edge of the outer primary feather and soft fringes on the trailing edge of the flight feathers. The combination of these seemingly small details reduces the ultrasonic sound that small mammals are particularly sensitive to. In other words, the owls have evolved in a particularly precise way, with almost completely silent flight to give them an advantage over very specific prey. However, one disadvantage of this slow, very low flight is that far too many barn owls die on our roads, hit by cars as they drift out in front of them.
Despite their ghostly reputation, they are not, of course, white but a lovely blend of ochres, gold and russet feathers on their backs and face, and a much purer pale colour underneath. The females are spotted with ochre and the males are pure white, which is what you see as they fly. The facial disc is very distinctive with the beak emerging from feathers that makes it look like a nose between the two absolutely black eyes.
Barn owls are birds of open country and numbers have steadily increased as the woodland cover has dropped from about 50 per cent in the Bronze Age to today’s five per cent – the level it has been for the past 700 years. They flourished in the countryside of the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries and were regarded as the most common of all British owls, but modern agriculture has affected them badly and they declined steadily throughout the twentieth century. They are very responsive to fluctuations in vole populations, which in turn tend to boom and bust and are affected by harsh winters.
They are not garden birds and our farm is too wooded to be their natural habitat, although they hunt on the top of the hillside on the open, exposed landscape of thick grasses, heather and bilberries. They are tied closely man’s use of grasslands, and one of the ironies of the current desire to plant billions – no trillions – of trees, go vegan and stop all meat and dairy production, is that one of the earliest casualties would be the beautiful barn owl. The more you study and learn from nature, the more complicated and qualified interventions by humans become – however well-intentioned.
My Garden World is available from Waterstones, Amazon and all good bookshops.
What to do in the garden this month:
FEEDING BIRDS
As the weather changes the birds greedily feed off any seeds and berries in the garden but they soon get taken so supplementing this natural supply both helps them and provides a fascinating chance to share and observe their world.
In fact I would say that one of the things I most enjoy about winter is watching the birds feed at the table outside our kitchen window. It may not have the glamour of going on safari or a trip to the Galapagos - but it is just as rewarding and right on every gardener’s doorstep.
Obviously it helps for the food to be as calorific as possible and seeds, nuts and fat are best of all. Left-over pastry, bread and rice always get eaten fast and fruit is good, especially for blackbirds and thrushes. Grated cheese is popular as well as cooked (but not raw) potatoes. Avoid anything salty such as crisps, salted peanuts or bacon. I buy dried mealworms too which robins, tits and wrens gobble up greedily. If in doubt sunflower seeds and fat-balls - preferably hanging so tits can land on them without being bullied away by more aggressive birds - are invariably popular.
Another way of making sure that all the food does not get gobbled up by pigeons and starlings is to find an old log with lots of cracks and crevices and pour seed over it. The smaller birds will extract every last bit from the fissures that bigger ones cannot reach.
Once you start to feed try and be as regular as possible with the supply, as the birds use up precious energy in coming to your bird table which is then wasted if it is bare. Also always be sure that there is a fresh supply of water for them to drink, especially in freezing weather.
PLANT TULIPS
November it is tulip-planting time. This is, to my mind, the most important and best job of the month. It is actually something that can be done at any time between now and Christmas although the earlier they get into the ground the earlier they will flower.
The essential thing with all tulips is to make sure that they have good drainage. This matters less if they are to be treated as annuals and dug up after they have flowered but even so they will be happier with plenty of grit or sand added to heavy soil. If they are to be permanent it is important to plant them as deep as you can - I’ll often use a crowbar to make a hole 12 inches or more deep - and the deeper they are the stronger and straighter the stem will be.
If you are growing them in a container then drainage is easier and they do not have to be so deep and can also be planted in layers - a tulip lasagne, with an earlier variety such as ‘Orange Emperor’ planted deepest that will flower first, followed by a mid-season variety like ‘Negrita’ planted above it and then finally, in the top layer a late-season one such as ‘Queen of Night’.
LIFTING DAHLIAS
Frost reduce Dahlias to blackened tatters so it will be time to bring them in. However the tubers will not be harmed unless the ground freezes, so do not panic.
Wait until the top has fully died back and then cut back the top growth to 6 inches whilst they are still in the ground and carefully dig up the tubers, removing as much soil as possible. Stand them upside down for a few days to drain any moisture from the hollow stems and to let the tubers dry a little and then store them in a tray or pot packed with old potting compost, vermiculite, sharpsand or sawdust.
The idea is to keep them cool but frost-free, dark and dry but not to let them dry out completely or else the tubers will shrivel. I lightly water mine after layering them into large pots or crates and then check them every month to see if any are mouldy or shrivelling up.
LEAVES
Keep gathering fallen leaves, mowing them, keeping them damp and storing in a bay or bin bags to make leafmould. Leaves decompose mostly by fungal action rather than bacterial which means that dry leaves can take an awful long time to turn into the lovely, friable, sweet-smelling soft material that true leafmould invariably becomes. So either gather leaves when they are wet or be prepared to dampen them with a good soaking before covering them up with the next layer.
It also helps a lot to chop them up. The easiest way to do this is to mow them which also gathers them up as you do it. Of course if the leaves are too wet they will clog the mower up so I try and sweep and rake them into a line when dry, run the mower over them and then give them a soak with the hose when they are in the special chicken wire-sided bay. If you don’t have room for a dedicated leaf bay then put the mown leaves into a black bin bag, punch a few drainage holes in the bottom, soak them and let it drain and then store it out of sight. This system works perfectly well.
Either way the leaves will quietly turn into leafmould over the next six months without any further attention. You can also use them in Spring in a half-decomposed state, as a very good mulch around emerging plants.
WASHING SLIPPERY PATHS
At this time of year brick and stone paths can be very slippery and dangerous. This is due to algae that grows on the surface, especially if wet and shaded and at this time of year they may stay wet and slippery for months. The best way to reduce the slipperiness is to wash off the algae with a pressure hose (which can be hired by the day). When this is done brush in sharpsand. If the path is brick or stone the porous surface will absorb some of the sand. A quicker - but still quite laborious - alternative is simply to work sand in with a stiff brush without the washing. Either way you have a very effective way of making a path safe without resorting to chemicals.
PLANT TREES, HEDGES AND SHRUBS
Continue to plant deciduous wood material such as trees, hedges and shrubs. From the beginning of this month nurseries will be selling bare-root plants. Buying woody deciduous shrubs, hedging plants or trees ’bare-root’ - i.e straight from the ground and not in a container - tends to be much cheaper, better quality and offers a much wider choice. But this must be planted when dormant so this is becoming a job that needs doing urgently. Plants in pots can wait a little longer if necessary.
As soon as you receive the plants give them a good drink in a bucket of water and keep them moist until ready to plant. Prepare your planting hole, remembering that a wide hole is much better than a deep one, and do not let the roots dry out even for a minute as they will die back very quickly so keep them covered or soaking in a bucket of water until the very last minute. Plant firmly, keeping all the stem above soil level, stake if necessary, water well and then always mulch thickly.
PLANTING PAPERWHITES FOR XMAS
Paperwhite daffodils, Narcissi papyraceus, will be flowering for Christmas if you plant them at the beginning of November. Unlike most daffodils, it is native to the Mediterranean and do not require a period of vernalisation - or cold - to induce flowering. So plant the bulbs just beneath the surface of your compost in a container (ideally with drainage but a normal bowl can be used if you add some charcoal to keep the soil sweet) keep them watered but not soggy and place in a warm, light place. The bulbs will grow strongly and if indoors in the warmth flower in 4 weeks. To delay and prolong flowering keep them cool but frost free.
HARDWOOD CUTTINGS
Hardwood cuttings are easy to take, slow to grow roots but a remarkably straightforward way of creating new shrubs, bushes and even trees from existing favourites. Fruit bushes, roses, any flowering shrub or tree are ideal for this method of propagation. Unlike growing plants from seed, cuttings always ‘come true’ - in other words are exactly like the parent plant so it is the best way of reproducing favourite plants as well as being almost totally trouble free and needing no extra equipment or shelter.
Cut a 12-24 inch length of straight stem the thickness of a pencil of this year’s growth, and divide it into lengths between 6 &12 inches long. Cut straight across the bottom and at an angle at the top so you remember which way up to plant it and to provide an angle for water to run off.
Strip any remaining leaves from it so you have bare, straight stems and either place the cuttings so only one third is above soil level in a deep pot filled with very gritty compost (4 or 5 can fit into each pot) or outside in a narrow trench backfilled with gritty sand to ensure good drainage. Leave them until next autumn, watering well once a week and a good percentage will make young plants ready for potting up or planting straight out.
CLEAN AND SERVICE LAWN MOWERS
Rather than leaving it till you want to make the first cut of your lawn next Spring, now is the time to give your mower a good once-over before putting them away for the winter. Wash it down and scrape off any encrusted grass. Drain any petrol from the tank. Check all screws and bolts to ensure they are properly tightened. Oil the blades and all moving parts and unless it is running and cutting exceptionally well take it for a service and sharpen by a professional rather than wait until next Spring when they will be inundated. Finally put it away somewhere dry and safe in the knowledge that when you need it in earnest it will perform properly at the first asking and throughout the next cutting season.
PROTECT GOOD TERRACOTTA POTS
I am not suggesting that you have any bad terracotta pots - heaven forfend - but some are undoubtedly more weather proof-and expensive- than others. The problem to beware is that terracotta is porous so absorbs water. Thus if it is filled with wet soil hard frost will expand that moisture and crack the pot. Even if it is empty fine terracotta can crack or flake in hard frosts. The answer is either to bring them in under cover where they can be kept dry or to wrap them in hessian or bubblewrap to provide a degree of insulation. This will be enough to protect a favourite pot and avoid a very pricey replacement in Spring.
PLANT GARLIC BULBS
I start planting garlic bulbs in September but it can be done at any time before Christmas to have a good harvest next summer. The garlic you mostly buy is almost always ‘soft neck’ which has a flexible plaitable stem, stores well (which is why shops stock it) and is often excellent. But many think the best garlic are ‘hard neck’ varieties which have a stiff, upright stalk and tends to have smaller bulbs. However it is just as easy to grow and get hold of from good suppliers and because it is much harder to buy, it makes sense to grow it yourself.
Hardneck varieties such as ‘Red Duke’, ‘Rocambole’, or ‘Early Purple Wight’ are slower to grow so may take a while to appear whereas softneck varieties should start to show shoots after a month or so.
Like all garlic of any type, plant plump individual cloves (the bigger the clove the bigger the bulb it will generate) 6-9 inches apart, pointed end up and buried a good inch below the surface in well-drained soil in a very sunny position that has plenty of organic material dug into it. Shoots will appear in about 6-8 weeks.