Keeping on top of the gardening jobs can be daunting, and it's all too easy to let things slide in one area or another for a month or two.
The answer is simple: keep a detailed checklist of jobs which need doing in each month of the year. The list below is the one kept by Becky Crowley, formerly in charge of the cutting garden at Chatsworth.
Your list might not be as exhaustive as Becky’s — then again, the chances are that you’re not a professional gardener who was recently poached for a new role in the USA. But whether you’re tending a couple of acres of a couple of window boxes, this exhaustive list will help you stay on track.
JANUARY
- Check tools and kit required for the year ahead, including stakes, netting, compost, seeds, labels etc
- Make repairs to irrigation, fencing, netting, cold frames etc
- Clean and sharpen tools
- Clear and tidy glasshouses, shed, cold frames
- Project work requiring big changes, such as installing fencing / changing the garden layout etc
- Order dahlias and chrysanthemums
- Continue cutting down any perennials
- Weeding
- Mulching
- Straw path laying
- Plant bare-root plants
FEBRUARY
- Make sweet pea wigwams from birch stakes
- Install metal (rebar) stakes with netting
- Order summer bulbs such as gladioli and lilies
- Continue cutting down perennials
- Start sowing annuals for early flowers
- Planning plant positions and successions
- Start pruning roses
- Planting perennials and shrubs (weather dependant)
- Weeding
- Mulching
- Straw path laying
MARCH
- Sowing – lots
- Planting autumn/winter-sown hardy annuals and perennials
- Pot up tuberose
- Take dahlia cuttings
- Hoeing / weeding
- Pot on seedlings
- Prune roses
- Harden off young plants for planting out later
- Straw path laying and mulching
- Topping up gravel on paths in preparation for re-opening to public
APRIL
- Plant out sweet pea seedlings
- Get dahlia tubers out of storage and start potting up
- Apply biological control
- Take cuttings (ie plectranthus, salvias, dahlias)
- Sowing – lots
- Paint shading on glasshouses
- Pot on cuttings as they take root
- Continue to move plants into cold frames to harden off
- Keep on top of weeding
- Water glasshouses and pots
MAY
- Pot up cuttings
- Pot up Gladiolus murielaea bulbs
- Sowing – lots
- Staking – lots
- Start to plant out dahlias by the end of the month
- Chelsea chop astrantias
- Empty spring pot displays
- Remove all tulip bulbs to clear ground for next crop
- Planting out – lots
- Potting on
- Water glasshouses and pots
- Weeding
- Keep glasshouse pests in check
JUNE
- Any work associated with RHS Chatsworth show
- Lift and store glasshouse Ranunculus and Anemone coronaria
- Mulch glasshouse beds
- Replant glasshouse beds with zinnias
- Sow biennials
- Remove crops as they go over
- Planting out – lots
- Potting on where necessary
- Pinching out
- Deadhead peonies and other plants
- Keep on top of weeds
- Additional staking
- Water glasshouses and pots
JULY
- Remove spent annuals and replace with late-season crops
- Plant Chrysanthemum plug plants in glasshouse
- Plant up pots for late summer display
- Keep on top of deadheading
- Cut back early perennials as they go over
- Potting on
- Planting out
- Weeding
- Additional staking
- Start to plant out biennials if there’s space in the garden
- Collect and store attractive seed heads for winter decoration
- Water glasshouses and pots
AUGUST
- Start to stop and dis-bud chrysanthemums
- Order spring bulbs and sweet peas seeds by end of month
- Order annual seeds
- Pot up / plant out biennials as space becomes available
- Remove spent annuals such as sweet peas, replace where possible
- Stake / tie-in plants as they grow taller
- Seed collecting
- Keep on top of glasshouse pests
- General tidying up in the garden
- Water glasshouses and pots
- Go on holiday!
SEPTEMBER
- Continue to dis-bud chrysanthemums and stake them
- Sow hardy annual seeds for flowers next year
- Continue to plant biennials as space becomes available
- Cutting back / removing spent crops
- Continue deadheading and weeding
- Plan where to plant bulbs
- Order and plant and new perennials
- Take cuttings if needed
- Go through this years’ notes and make plans for next year
- Water glasshouses and pots
OCTOBER
- Pre-sprout and plant Anemone coronaria and Ranunculus
- Start to plant spring bulbs
- Order bare-root shrubs including roses
- Clear beds of spent plants
- Plant any remaining biennials and perennials
- Plant bulbs in crates to be forced
- Empty large pots of late summer displays
- Plant up large pots for spring displays
- Move a section of tender perennials indoors to protect from frost
- Clear glasshouse zinnias
- Continue to dis-bud glasshouse chrysanthemums
- Double check that all dahlias are labelled before frosts
- Mulching
- Straw path laying
- Plant out hardy annuals before the temperature drops too cold
- Weeding
NOVEMBER
- Continue planting spring bulbs including tulips
- Cut back roses to reduce wind rock
- Sow sweet peas for flowers next year
- Sow hardy annuals to be kept in frames until early spring
- After the frost start to lift dahlias to dry out in glasshouse
- Start to clean up and store dahlias once dry
- Cutting back perennials
- Removing all annuals
- Weeding
- Mulching
- Straw path laying
- Start to lift unwanted plants to be replaced with new varieties
- Review garden to make changes for next year
DECEMBER
- Finish tulip planting if not yet complete.
- Plant bare root shrubs
- Transplanting perennials where needed if weather suits
- Mulching
- Straw path laying
- Weeding
- Plant some seedlings in glasshouse for early flower
- Specific research
- Clearing and cleaning glasshouses, cold frames and shed
- Sow sweet peas if not done already
- Move sweet peas once germinated to cold frames
- Project work such as installing rabbit fencing
