September is a month when the garden offers up some fabulous ‘freebies’ to the gardener. Whether you make use of this for your own benefit or to share with others is up to you, but if next year’s garden is there for the taking, you’d be daft not to!

Collect the seeds of perennials and other garden plants this month when they are fully ripe. Pop the seed heads in paper bags then hang them in a warm spot to dry out. A few weeks later you can tidy the seeds from the dried out bits of foliage and seed head, then sort them into envelopes. Label and store in a cool, dry place.

Swap Shop
If you feel so inclined, you could swap your seeds with friends to enjoy each other’s successes or give your seeds as gifts. This would be lovely for a gardening friend who perhaps lives some distance away as they can be popped in the post inexpensively.

It’s a Gift...
Get hold of some of those brown wage envelopes if you can, and decorate with a pretty jam label or ribbon. Or make your own envelopes from wrapping paper. What could be a better gift for the person that has everything than growing and enjoying a flower that someone dear to them has loved?

It’s also satisfying to think that you have your own ‘stash’ of seeds ready and waiting for next year. You will have saved yourself not only money but time as well. That feeling of having things squirreled away for the future is like opening a cupboard full of home-made jam or seeing your freezer full of delicious gluts.

Preserving Herbs
If you grow herbs in your garden – I grow lots – then September is a good month to dry or freeze some to guarantee you have them over winter. Herbs such as flat leaf parsley can be chopped finely then packed into ice-cube trays. Top with water and freeze.

Remove from the tray then place in a bag and return to the freezer. It’s good to think you can just throw in a cube of herbs to a warming dish whenever you need to.

A gardener who makes the most of the ‘freebies’ her cutting garden offers her is Rachel Petheram, whose business Catkin is based at Doddington Hall near Lincoln.

Rachel has a ‘nursery area’ in her garden, which is something us everyday gardeners can use a quiet corner for.

“Take stem cuttings of roses in early September then push them straight into the soil in a nursery area of the garden,” explains Rachel.

“They can be left to root and develop for about a year.” Rachel advises that most types of rose can be propagated from cuttings, especially the rambling types.

“Just take a length of stem, removing the soft tip above a leaf joint, and cut below a joint at the base, removing all but the top three leaves. Then push the 30cm (12in) cutting into the soil to about half its length.”

Considering how expensive rose bushes can be, this is useful advice if you are prepared to be patient!

Still on the subject of roses, another tip from Rachel for this month is to give roses a final deadhead when the blooms have faded, as well as reducing the length of tall stems slightly to stop them from rocking in the autumn wind and becoming damaged.

Extra Autumn Colour
Rachel does suggest that you leave those that have developed hips for some extra autumn colour.

For those of us, like me, at the start of their gardening journey I must explain that I don’t mean that the roses have been devouring their chocolate counterparts; a hip on a rose is the plant’s fruit.

They ripen in autumn and produce colours ranging from red and orange to dark purple and black. They add lovely autumnal colour so consider leaving them.

Cut and Come Again
Other cuttings to take this month include lavender, penstemons, heather, fuchsias, hydrangeas, rose, clematis, buddleia, alpines, ceanothus and bedding geraniums. Pull off the side shoots with that have ‘heels’ then remove the lower leaves and place in a small pot of compost. Keep an eye on them so they don’t dry out.

You can sow angelica and lovage in September. Yes, these are herbs and yes, angelica is largely ornamental these days as we don’t candy the stems as the Victorians did.

However, both are tall and imposing and so look great at the back of a border, I think.

Cooking with Lovage
Angelica is a personal favourite as I love its shape and form (plus its rather mystical name) though I do enjoy cooking with lovage. Lettuce, broad bean and lovage soup is great. So if you have a spot that needs something tall, consider these two.

The Battle Rages
We have a bit of a battle in our house as Steve likes a lawn to look like a lawn and I would dig it all up and turn it into raised beds given half a chance and a pile of railway sleepers.

I do like the look of autumn crocus or cyclamen in a lawn, and they look lovely at Doddington Hall. If you have them in your lawn, September is a good month to make sure the lawn has had its final cut before they start emerging.

While you are thinking about getting your lawn ready for autumn, now is a good time to have a general tidy up as well.

Clearing Up the Garden
Plant debris that inevitably gathers can be picked up and put in your ‘brown bin’ or composter.

Around about now is also the time I start to think about giving my potting shed a good sweep and tidy. I also know that this year I have to look at my wood shed roof as I have spotted from my bathroom window that it looks like some of the roof covering has come loose thanks to a stray ivy tree branch.

I am hoping a scurry up the ladder and a bit of hammer banging will do the trick. 

So, what with fixing roofs thanks to a well-aimed hammer whack and saving seeds for next year, September is a month for mending what the year has worn away with its rain and sun plus gathering what the same weather has offered us. The balance is harmonious!