Gardening: Your jobs for the weekend of Sept 19/20 | Brian Kidd

Our horticultural hotshot sets you to work.
You can start planting daffodils now. Picture: Liam Nash.You can start planting daffodils now. Picture: Liam Nash.
You can start planting daffodils now. Picture: Liam Nash.

• Daffodil bulbs can be planted at any time between now and the end of November – five inches deep for best results.

• The hardy amaryllis is in the garden centres. Buy three bulbs, plant them in a sunny spot and you will be rewarded with flowers in the autumn virtually forever.

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• Do you enjoy visiting garden centres? See if you can find some autumn-flowering crocus corms, you may be able to find them in the colour picture packs. These flowers are usually pink and give a good show of flowers when the weather starts to feel colder.

• Cuttings of bedding geraniums will root very easily if taken now. Simply cut off non-flowering shoots below a node and pop them in alongside the parent plant and they will root like weeds.

• Orchids, bird of paradise plants and any tender indoor plants which were put out into the garden for summer should be brought back indoors now.

• Think about getting hold of some manure. Keep it in its bags until you are ready to dig it in during the autumn.

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• If mildew spoils the fruits on grapes, blow in some sulphur dust through the berries.

• Take cuttings of expensive basket plants such as Japanese petunias. If they aren’t producing enough new growth for cuttings, give the plants a high nitrogen feed or a teaspoon of sulphate of ammonia in one gallon of water.

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