Gardening Tips for October 2025

October is the last chance before the winter sets in to give the lawn some tlc.

September brought us rain, the grass has begun to recover, autumn is already in full swing, Strictly is back on the telly, what more of a motivation can one need to get into the garden and enjoy (or pretend to enjoy) being at one with nature. So, if you’re not watching dancing, or endless box sets of stuff designed to soften the brain, what does October need from us in the garden?

Lawns

This month I’ll concentrate on lawns as they took a bit of a hammering during the summer. Grass is designed to cope with harsh weather; in times of drought, it goes into survival mode aka looking dead. But as the September rain demonstrated, all it needs is a couple of cm of rain and within days the green sward has started to return. To maintain your grass, keep mowing but not too short, leave the cut grass standing at about 40mm. The grass will continue growing for as long as the temperature remains above about 8C and as the temperature cools and the days become shorter the interval between mowing will increase until one day around Christmas, you’ll find you can stop mowing for the year. Should I cut the grass when it’s wet? If your mower is sharp enough, yes you can, if it’s raining and the mower is electric, perhaps not.  Mowing wet grass can cause the mower to rip the grass rather than cutting it but I find cutting wet grass OK, the only problem really being that the grass clogs up the mower and doesn’t feed into the grass box.

October is the last chance before the winter sets in to give the lawn some tlc. Apply an autumn lawn feed (but make doubly certain it is an autumn treatment which is low in nitrogen).  The idea of an autumn feed is to kill moss, provide weed control and feed the grass so it has a good start to the growing season next spring. The high phosphorus and potassium feed aims to harden the grass against extreme cold/frost, winter disease and to promote strong root growth.

If the grass on the lawn doesn’t appear to be growing upright this could be a sign of a compacted lawn or more likely one with a lot of thatch and therefore could benefit from scarifying. A lawn scarifier scratches the matted old grass out of the lawn leaving behind grass that can quickly recover but at first glance you’ll be saying “what have I done” because scarifying can look like the end of your lawn for ever. But it will recover to look better than before, any bald patches can be reseeded and watered to get them germinated before the winter sets in.

Any bald patches may need reseeding; this can still be done as late as October providing the temperature remains above 8C. For a quicker fix, new turf can be spliced into the bald patches but this does require a bit more preparation, carefully digging the correct size patch. Whichever method is chosen it will need watering.

Aerating the lawn is another technique to help the grass survive the winter.  The technique involves making holes in your lawn, reducing the risk of waterlogging. It also helps air and nutrients reach the grass roots, promoting lush, healthy growth that is claimed to outcompete weeds. The simplest method of aerating the lawn is to get a garden fork and methodically pierce the ground as much as you can before giving up and buying an aerating tool from an online shopping outlet.

One such tool comprises a pair of aerating shoes which look like a mediaeval torture devise with multiple long prongs, as one walks over the lawn the prongs do the business but make sure the prongs aren’t too long or you could find yourself stuck in the middle of the lawn rocking from side to side trying to break free.

And as the leaves start to fall, those will need picking up before they clump together into soggy patches and kill the grass underneath.

Worm casts can be unsightly to the manicured sward. Worms are a sign of a healthy lawn so don’t try to get rid of them because you don’t like the sight of worm casts. The easiest way to deal with the casts it to wait for a dry day and either collect them up or just brush them across the lawn.

Keep gardening, Richard Haigh EGRGA Communications