Gardening in November – November’s garden blog

“Nearly every year come a few November days of clear, crisp weather, [with] the sky blown clear, [and the] air chill enough to have a slight tang, like properly aged cider.” Gardening in November is a time of year when we gardeners are holding our breath, revelling in the last sunshine days, and waiting on tenterhooks for the first frost. As I was taking photos for this post, I must confess I was surprised at how much colour our November garden is still showing. But, as they say, a gardener’s life is never still, and my November gardening to do list has plenty to keep me busy.

What to do in the garden in November

Gardening in November is all about tidying up, end of season planting, and continuing to put the garden to bed for Winter. That said, even in late Autumn I still have plenty of November gardening tips to share with you. And as usual, I’m kept company by Loki (below) and Ginger while I’m carrying out any and all maintenance in November. Spooky has far more sense, he stays inside where it’s warm.

November flowering plants

If you’ve read any of my previous garden blogs, you’ll know how much I love this month’s cover star, our beautiful perennial Hydrangea by our front door. She’s been flowering reliably for months now, and her pale green/white blooms fade to a blushing pink over time. Such a wonderful plant, every garden needs a hydrangea, I will die on this hill.

Other November flowers that are brightening our garden are the little purple Asters by our smaller ponds and an unexpected reappearance of the pale blue-purple Campanula (Canterbury Bells) by the back garden wall.

As I mentioned last month, some of the best flowering perennial plants for Autumn displays are salvias. Received wisdom says they’re tender perennials and aren’t frost-hardy. But ours clearly haven’t had that memo as they’ve been going for several years now. Don’t their vibrant, jewel-like colours look beautiful?

Thanks to the very mild weather at the beginning of the month, some pops of pink have returned too. My lovely (and edible) Achillea (yarrow) and a single bloom on a self-seeded Lychnis Coronaria. The latter had plenty of seedheads, whose seeds I’ve broadcast sown liberally all over any bare patch of earth. Fingers crossed for lots of little seedlings next year.

Still going strong is our incredibly long lived Cosmos Dazzler* sown from seed this year. I keep deadheading, she keeps flowering. Amazing! And one of our new fuchsias has flowered again too. Fun fact: fuchsia berries are edible. If you harvest them too soon, I can confirm they taste like a watery cherry, but if you leave them to go really dark purple, they’re apparently much sweeter. Patience is a virtue…

Flowers to plant in November include plenty of Spring bulbs for bursts of colour next year. I’ve finished planting all my daffodils, narcissi, alliums, and most of my tulip bulbs, with another 50 or so left to go. And I’m feeling very grateful for my long handled bulb planter* which is a lifesaver for my back and the perfect gift for any gardener – remember, Black Friday is coming up 🙂 The tulips are all in pots and when they’ve finished flowering, I can move them out of sight so their dying foliage can continue feeding the bulbs for the following year. Tip: make sure your pots don’t get waterlogged over Winter, either keep them raised up on a ledge or pop them onto bricks so they don’t sit in puddles.

Regular readers of my garden blogs will know I have varying successes with my sweet peas*. I’ve tried planting them in January and in March, but this year I’m trying in Autumn. Apparently, October/November sown seeds can get their roots down and then grow away faster in Spring, producing earlier blooms. So, I’ve sown two seeds per cell in a compost/soil mix in Rootrainers* to overwinter in the greenhouse. We’ll see (can you hear the dripping scepticism?) And if nothing happens, I’ll just try again in March.

I’m very surprised to see some early blooms on our Daphne Odora and one of our Skimmia shrubs too. Usually they wouldn’t appear until December, but perhaps that’s a symptom of climate change with warmer Autumns. Fun fact: in Korea, Daphne Odora is also called “churihyang” – a thousand-mile scent. Very apt, her fragrance follows you all around our orchard.

So, what can be planted in the garden in November? Before the ground freezes and while the soil is still warm, now’s an excellent time to be planting out bare root roses and other shrubs like the Skimmias. Bare root means plants are shipped to you with their roots in plastic bags rather than in heavy pots. When you get them, give them a good soak in a bucket of water straight away, and plant them out. That’s all there is to it, and it’s an extremely cost-effective way of increasing your plant stock while the growing season is still here.

Last but not least, my beloved grown-from-tuber dahlia, Penhill Watermelon, is still blooming. Dahlias are prolific flowerers up until the first frost, when they blacken and die off. When this happens, you want to prune everything back to a couple of inches of stalk and then you have two choices. Conscientious gardeners will lift the tubers, shake off the soil, let them dry out and store them somewhere dry and cold over winter. Lazy gardeners will leave them in situ, mulch heavily, and hope for the best. I’m sure you can guess which kind of gardener I am.

Vegetable gardening in November

So, what to do in the vegetable garden in November? To be honest, there’s not a lot you can grow and harvest now, with the possible exception of some quick salad leaf crops*, provided there are no frosts. But while the soil is still warm, good seeds to plant in November are broad beans* and early maincrop peas* which can get a head start ahead of next Spring. I’ve sown some broad beans in pots for overwintering in the greenhouse, but if you sow outdoors, you’ll need to protect tender new shoots with cloches* polytunnels*, or horticultural fleece* over Winter.

I’m still waiting for the harvestable spears to show up on my Romanesco* cauliflowers sown from seed this year. But at least I can’t blame the pigeons or caterpillars, thanks to their protective zip up netted cage*. Fingers crossed we can harvest before Christmas though. And for those who might be wondering can you still plant in November? Yes, you can, it’s not too late to plant garlic which prefers cold weather to get going.

You may remember from last month’s post, I said I was looking for some kiwi jam recipes for our rock hard, fuzzy little kiwis. Well, I plan to harvest and leave them all in a bowl in the conservatory to see if they soften up, because I really can’t face peeling a hundred or so furry marbles right now 🙁

November gardening to do list

Top of my list is a carry over from my October gardening jobs. I need to replace the pest control grease bands* on our plum fruit trees to stop Winter moths climbing up and laying eggs to infest our plum harvest lots of little wriggling guests 🙁 And other gardening jobs to do now include pruning our blackcurrant and gooseberries bushes. Gardening in November means it’s time to clear, weed and top up our vegetable beds and around our perennial plants with compost before applying a thick mulch of my favourite Strulch*. Straw + mulch = Strulch 🙂 This works as an insulator, soil conditioner and slug/snail deterrent, so it’s well worth doing.

As you can see, I’ve managed to clear out the greenhouse, ready for overwintering my seeds and cuttings. One of the best November garden tips I heard recently is how to protect your cold frame or greenhouse plants from frost by attaching sheets of bubble wrap* to the inside of the frame. It might look odd but I’m sure it’s very effective, so I might have to give this a go – it’s certainly cheaper than heating the greenhouse at any rate. And we can use any left-over bubble wrap to wrap around outdoor taps and pipes to insulate them too.

Alan will be cutting the grass in our orchard now we have a new lawn mower (nudge, nudge when he reads this post). Winter lawn care means he sets the blade on a higher cut height as the grass growth has slowed right down. But before he does that, one of Flora’s jobs (if she wants her pocket money) is to rake up all the fallen leaves from our deciduous trees. Then pack them into large jute sacks* to biodegrade down into organic matter. Leaf mulch is a brilliant and free soil conditioner and a great insulator for your garden beds. Lucky for us we have a lot of leaves, although I’m sure Flora would beg to differ.

Another job on the November gardening checklist is to prune the roses. But I’m going to hold off for a little longer as the hips provide food for our garden birds, along with our grapevine’s plentiful crop.

Lastly, and this isn’t strictly a November gardening job, but I didn’t know where else to put it. If you’ve read my houseplants for allergies post, then you might recall I spoke about how easy it is to propagate your indoor plants for free. And that’s exactly what I’ve done with one of our Aloe Vera plants – I managed to harvest no less than 14 little Aloe Vera pups, which are potted up and growing on nicely. Guess what my friends will be getting for Christmas this year…  Side note: the mother plant is very happy too now she’s on her own with some fresh soil.

Wildlife gardening jobs to do in November

Our wildlife pond is looking very healthy for the time of year. I used to worry that the water wasn’t crystal clear, but I don’t have to live in it and all the bazillion baby goldfish and other pond-dwelling inhabitants clearly don’t care. Fingers crossed they’ll be happy hibernating at the bottom once the ice forms in due course.

You might be able to just see some of our bird feeders hanging from the trees in the background. Alan fills them up daily with nuts and seeds*, and nutritious fat balls* to give all our garden birds a really good energy boost ahead of the expected cold weather this Winter. And they also have plenty of berries and seeds to graze on in the rest of our garden – like these fluffy Clematis seedheads. Fun fact: when Clematis go to seed, they’re known colloquially as Old Man’s Beard!

Gardening in November – a summary

And we’ve reached the end of my November gardening update. As always, I’m only sharing what we’ve been doing here in the South West of England. I’m well aware that my fellow gardeners around the world and in different hemispheres will have their own flora, produce and jobs to deal with. But I hope my answers to some commonly asked questions have been helpful nonetheless:

• What should I do in my garden in November?
• What to do with your garden at the end of the season
• What are the main gardening jobs to do in November?

Well, I can’t believe this post marks your 11th virtual visit to our garden and orchard of the year. I hope you’ve enjoyed it and please do join me again in December for what will be the last garden update of 2021. And then it will be time for a well-deserved rest for Alan and for me! Happy remains of November until then 🙂

What have you been doing in your November garden? Have you got any November gardening tips to share? Which is your favourite of my tips and photos in this November garden update?

* This post features affiliate links but all opinions are my own (see my Disclaimer).