Staying with herbaceous perennials, before winter makes the ground too hard, get dividing by digging up the root and cut into halves or quarters and replant. This will increase your number of plants and rejuvenate the original plant.

We are enjoying nature's wonderful autumnal colours now but the down-side is leaves.

My advice is to rake up little and often – it's easier than dealing with a big wet decomposing heap.

If empty, then another good job to do is give your greenhouse a thorough cleaning to reduce disease potential and remove any over-wintering pests.

It's also a good time now to plant out spring cabbage.

Also, start thinking ahead and look through catalogues to select your seeds for next year.

Tip of The Week

Leaves are falling so now is a good time to net off your pond. It will save a lot of work removing the leaves long term.

Leaf litter in small amounts will not be a problem but a lot can change the chemical balance in the water, affecting organic pond life.

Plants News of the week

All the trees here in the park are looking wonderful with their autumn colours. Acers are particularly resplendent.

With their wonderful selections of autumnal colours – yellows, reds and ambers – what a show it is this year, so get out and enjoy it before the winds come.

Q Can you give me advice on lawns? What should I be doing now?

PG, Garrowhill

A Firstly ensure your grass is cut and cleared off. Go over your full lawn with a hollow core machine, which you can hire.

This will produce small cores which can be raked up and put on your compost heap.

Using a scarifier, again easy to hire, or a springbok rake, vigorously go over your lawn to remove all the thatch dead grass.

The lawn will look rather bare but will soon recover.

Apply an autumn/winter lawn fertilizer then a top dressing, again easily available in garden centres, and brush it in well.