Why Autumn Is the Best Time to Plant Perennials | Perennnial Garden

Most people think of spring as the best time of year to plant up our garden. And it's true, it's a great time of year. There's even songs about how April showers bring May flowers. But even here in the autumn, and my goodness what an autumn day we're having, a little bit of rain, a little bit of wind, it's all the good stuff that make this time of year excellent for planting. The ground is warm, it's really moist, and it's the perfect time to get new plants to the ground. Yes, and I actually have some cuttings that we did, some sedum and some lupine, so I'm actually going to plant them out in the garden right now. So come along. Look at this cutting sitting in a jam jar. And really look at those strong roots. And so this one is a cutting that I did a good two and a half month ago, and then I just had it in the greenhouse where it's really nice and sheltered. And the good thing about doing it now here is, first of all, the roots are nice now and could be like a cutting if you go to even nurseries. The great time is also now because a lot of places have great offers on sale on plants that they need to get rid of, they want to have them out of the shops. So often we can do great deals also in the shops or in the nurseries there with plants. And so this one, if you have perennials or bushes, trees, things like that, it's a great time because first of all, nature is doing all the watering. You don't have to do any watering, which is really, really great in comparison to spring or summer where the soil really dries out really easily. You have to do a lot of watering. Here you don't have to worry at all about watering because we get a lot of water now. Because the plant isn't planning on flowering here around Christmas time, so it's not even going to need as much water or need as much attention. So getting it in the ground now, yes, the ground is moist because we live in a country where it rains non-stop, it feels like, although it's a beautiful country, please do come. But yeah, so the plant really only has to focus on making roots. Yes, and another thing is now when I actually have a little loop in here, so I'm going to put it here. There's a little, yeah, you can see this. We don't have a lot of empty spots, but I found a little spot here, so I'm going to make a little hole here deep enough that I don't want to have it covered all the way up to here, but kind of to the base, so those strong roots will be covered and a bit protected in case there's any frost coming. But the thing is, you can, here and anywhere, you can actually, the thumb of rule is that you can plant perennials, especially when there's no hard frost or any, if it's sitting in waterlogged. This, you can see the soil, if you have soil that's really like clay, this is really rich soil, kind of just falls apart, even though it's rained for days. But if you have very clay soil, where it's just like waterlogged, where it sits in water, the plants, you might need to dig a bigger hole and add some drainage by using some pebbles and then add some compost in, because if it sits in really wet soil, it has a risk of just rotting, which we don't want. But this soil is really great, so I kind of make a good hole here for it. And then also another thing is great about the planting now is the soil is really warm and that is really great for the warm and wet for the plants here. So it has a really great start. So I'm just gonna hold it here with my two hands and then add some soil around. And then I do a gentle little push. There we go. And then I actually don't, I won't do any watering, I can actually just, because this is water from the jam jar here that I've also changed a few times over the weeks, and then I just add that in. But I don't have to do any more watering when you compare to like a summer or spring plant. You would have to make sure it doesn't, yeah, really die back or gets too dry there in the soil. So this one is going here and then we have the sedums up here. That's also cuttings. Well, let's go over here and see. So here's the sedum. You can see those roots are already looking nicely too. And these were just cuttings off of, actually the cat had laid, long story short. Neighbour's cat, not our cat. Yeah, the neighbour's cat came and laid, and a big sedum that we had over near the, near the terrace ruined everything. Everything just laid down. So I just took it. It was quite, quite tall. I just cut it into three or four different sections. We popped it in a pot and sedum is super easy. You could have just put these straight in the ground already, but sedum is really easy to root from cuttings. Yeah, that's true. So we actually have another area here that we divided early on some other perennials. So here there's a little empty spot. So this whole clump is going to go in. And the great thing about this one, it will also, compared to when I buy a plant from the nursery and then in the spring or summer, if it hasn't bloomed, and like Alan also mentioned, it will use so much energy on the flower. It doesn't have any flower now. So the great thing about also doing it now is that it has all winter to kind of establish under the ground and just has that whole season of winter to really get much stronger and more established and be ready for a really strong flower next year. So I just add the whole clump in here because these actually thrive in a clump together. And again, I just use the water what's in the jar here. There we go. And like we talked about earlier, this could have been even perennials that you found at a autumn sale or way after summer sale. Because both of these are herbaceous, so that means that they're going to really die back once winter comes. So don't worry when the tops of this, you can tell they're already heading into some sort of a hibernation stage. So don't worry when the tops are completely gone here in a few months because under there, the roots are doing their thing just like the rest of these perennials next to it are. And then it will come back ready to go in the spring and you'll have a head start compared to if you waited until the spring. That's true. So these ones are going to do so much better now out here instead of in the jars here. And they're going to be full of flower next spring. So thank you so much for watching. Moin!