November in the Garden 2026
November in the Garden 2026
We cannot believe how quickly the year has gone by, and for the Garden Team, November means the start of Winter jobs in earnest.
The Gardens are changing by the day, and the colours of the trees in the Grounds around the Gardens are lovely, with oranges, russets and reds being highlighted by the low Autumn sun. However, these gorgeous leaves are also falling more heavily now, so our Groundsman is spending an awful lot of time raking them up and adding them to our leaf mould piles to prevent the grass from being suffocated.
If you visit the Gardens now, you can see the real work of gardening. The work we do now is to ensure we create an even more wonderful garden next season, and we have a number of exciting new projects in the pipeline that we can update you on over the coming months. We hope you enjoy seeing the results.
One of our success stories from this year has been the new Central Border planting. The specimen trees are providing great Autumn colour alongside Stipa tenuissima, which is creating lots of texture and movement, with the other grasses adding to the overall effect. This new border will be left so we can enjoy the effect of Winter frosts and see how the new planting performs across the season.
The Tapestry Garden is another area of the Gardens that we leave in situ for as long as possible for the birds and insects to enjoy (as well as ourselves). Our large herbaceous borders, however, will be cut back, and we have started the clearance, with the debris being added to our compost heap. The clearance is followed by a final fork over, weeding and mulching before the borders are left for the Winter frosts to do their work on the soil.
This preparation enables us to get the Spring bulbs planted and lift and divide the perennials that need regeneration or can be added to new planting combinations. We will be lifting our dahlias, cleaning the tubers and storing them in the potting shed. Tender perennials such as our Cannas and Hedychiums will also be lifted and potted up for overwintering in the glasshouses. This year, we will be leaving some Hedychiums in their trial border to see how they perform in the final Winter of the RHS trial.
Other jobs we start in November are pruning and retying the rambler roses on chains, the climbing roses on the walls of the Millennium Parterre and the climbing shrubs on the walls. Our shrub roses will be cut back by a third to prevent wind rock over Winter.
In the Kitchen Garden, we have the final harvests of potatoes, celeriac, leeks and parsnips, and we are looking forward to the Brussels sprouts, chard and spinach. The Winter salads are being harvested every day, and the butternut squash is providing the chef with great ingredients for soups and risottos. The beds will be dug over and mulched with organic matter to rest, ready for Spring planting.
In the glasshouses, we have Chrysanthemums in full bloom, along with Hippeastrum and Narcissi being forced to be ready for Christmas. We will also pot up some Lily of the Valley rhizomes to bring into the glasshouses to flower earlier next year. The first sowing of sweet peas will be completed this month, along with the pricking off of hardy annual seedlings and potting on of the cuttings taken last month.
We look forward to welcoming you to the Gardens and answering any questions you have about our Winter work. It’s full steam ahead, and soon it will be Christmas!
