Your 2023 Gardening Calendar
Month by month gardening jobs to keep your outdoor spaces looking incredible all year round.
Landscaping is only the beginning of nurturing a beautiful garden. The secret to being able to enjoy your outdoor spaces in the long term lies in maintaining and developing them. Gardening needn’t be hard work, especially if your outdoor spaces have been landscaped with low maintenance in mind. However, just like housework, gardening helps keep things looking good and really does optimise the way energy flows around the space. It’s worth investing a little bit of time each month to keep on top of gardening jobs.
If you need a real garden calendar to hang on your wall, I can thoroughly recommend the Grubby Gardeners calendar from Perennial. Don’t worry – I’m not on it!
January Gardening Jobs
Evergreen plants will keep your garden feeling fresh and vibrant all year round – even in January!
Even in the SouthWest of England, January isn’t usually the best time to be outdoors for long periods. So my suggestion for gardening jobs in January is to sit by the fire with a nice cup of tea and make plans.
Plan how you want to use your garden, what you will plant and where you will source materials, plants and help.
Are you planning to grow your own fruit and veg? Do you need a greenhouse or raised beds to make that easier for you?
Are there any changes you want to make to the features, accessibility or layout or your garden?
Will you add structures for extra shade?
Do you need an irrigation system? If summer 2022 was anything to go by, a drip irrigation system will be a valuable asset to most gardens
This is a good time to set up water butts to collect and store rainwater for use during the dry summer months.
February Gardening Jobs
If the weather is mild, cut back dead vegetation in herbaceous borders and add it to the compost heap. If it’s still frosty, please wait a couple of weeks. There may be some lovely beneficial insects overwintering amounts the leaves and stems. These offer lots of gardening services for free, so they deserve to be looked after.
This is your last chance to order and plant bare root hedging, trees and roses. Bare root plants are considerably less expensive than pot grown plants – you can save yourself a fortune!
Clean your greenhouses and polytunnels to prepare for spring planting. That means inside and out. Clean the cover to let more light in and disinfect the inside to reduce the risk of diseases such as blight.
Plant onion setts outside.
March Gardening Jobs
A strong garden layout offers all year round interest no matter what stage of growth the plants are at
Start sowing veg seeds and hardy annuals in the greenhouse. This is one of my favourite jobs! I like to listen to an audiobook or a podcast while I’m working.
Order seed potatoes and start chitting them indoors.
Prune roses if you haven’t already done so.
Prepare the soil for new plants by removing pernicious weeds and digging in compost.
Think about square foot gardening to maximise the amount of food you can grow.
Deadhead spring flowering bulbs to encourage a great show next spring.
Feed lawns to get them off to a good start. If the grass has started growing, you can start growing. Make sure the mower blades are reasonably high, you don’t want to stress the grass this early in the year.
April Gardening Jobs
Food growing starts in earnest in April. Sow brassicas, salad crops & root vegetables and plant potatoes. But be prepared to cover potato beds with horticultural fleece if a late frost is forecast.
Tomato, pepper and cucumber plants can be planted in the greenhouse. I tend to buy plants from a garden centre rather than grow these from seed.
Plant courgette and squash seeds in pots, they can go into the garden when all risk of frost has passed.
Leaving a bucket full of fresh manure in your greenhouse is as good as using a heater—-talk to your local stables, they’re usually happy for you to collect manure for very little money.
Brush debris from artificial grass and freshen it with a specialist cleaning product to brighten the colour. Use a stiff broom to lift the pile.
May Gardening Jobs
May is arguably the busiest month of all in the gardening calendar. The weather is mild, plants are excited about the summer to come, bees are busy and there are blossoms everywhere.
Plant out tender plants such as bedding plants, squashes and courgettes.
Remove weeds and add a layer of mulch to flower beds.
Mow lawns once or twice a week. Little and often gets the best results and believe it or not is actually less work.
Sow sweetcorn and climbing beans in the vegetable garden….it’s OK to use the sweetcorn plants to support the beans. Plant squashes, courgettes and pumpkin plants in between. This is known as the 3 sisters and is a really efficient use of space.
June Gardening Jobs
Keep deadheading blooms regularly to encourage the plants to extend their flowering period.
Notice where there are gaps in herbaceous borders and add plants or ornaments to fill the spaces.
Water young plants and trees if the weather is very dry.
Refresh mulch around all plants to help them survive hot weather and drought.
Keep mowing the lawn but raise the cutting blades to help grass cope with dry weather. 5cm is a good cutting height for a family lawn.
Staying with the lawn care theme, move furniture, toys and lawn ornaments regularly so that they don’t discolour the grass.
Harvest and enjoy fruit and vegetables as they mature. Sow more salad crops, winter root crops and winter greens such as kale. Plant out young leek plants.
Wildflower meadow planting is low maintenance and looks fantastic during the months of May and June
July Gardening Jobs
Enjoy your garden. It’s a great time of year to be entertaining outdoors, relaxing in the hot tub, reading books and even working from home.
If you do need to water the plants, try to use water stored in your water butts – rainwater seems to refresh a garden better than tap water.
Ventilate your greenhouse and use sheets to provide shade for plants if the weather is very hot. Water at least once a day. Automatic vent openers and irrigations systems are useful tools to have at this time of year.
Hoe between plants and leave small weeds on the surface of the soil where the heat of the sun will dehydrate them.
No need to water the lawn unless it was turfed less than 3 months ago. The grass will turn golden in dry weather but will revive as soon as it rains.
August Gardening Jobs
Take a breath and look hard at your outdoor living situation. How have you enjoyed your garden so far this year. What would you change about it if you could? More shade? Less shade? More space for entertaining? Lighting for evening time? A water feature? Make better use of neglected corners? Lower maintenance?
Write your ideas down and perhaps create a mood board to illustrate them.
Visit other gardens and take photographs to help explain to a garden designer what you would like your garden to look like. This is a great time of year to redesign your garden for next summer especially as landscapers may have a waiting list of projects to be done.
Harvest tomatoes and peppers as they ripen. Whenever I have a glut of tomatoes, I make them into pasta sauce and freeze them for eating in winter time. Tomato puree is another good staple to make – freeze it in ice cube trays. One cube = 1 tablespoonful when you need it for a recipe.
Garden lighting is invaluable when the evenings start to draw in but the weather is still warm
September Gardening Jobs
In many cultures, the farming and gardening calendar starts in September. This is when we start preparing for the next season by nourishing soils, getting rid of unwanted plants
Give your lawn a seaweed treatment to help it recover from the summer and treat it to an autumn-winter feed to help develop the roots. If the ground is compacted, the lawn is mossy or you are seeing bare patches, invest in the services of a lawn care company who can scarify, aerate and overseed the area.
Install garden lighting so that you can make the most of the warm evenings. If you already have lighting in place, well done! It won’t hurt to give the fittings a quick wipe over with a cloth so that you get the full effect of them.
Pick and enjoy apples, plums and autumn fruiting raspberries. Store as many as you can for winter.
October Gardening Jobs
How are the autumn colours developing in your garden? Is it all looking a bit tired? Maybe you could revise your planting plan so that your garden looks great all year round?
Time to give your patio a refresh. Sweep or blow away any dust and debris and then gently hose it down with tap water and a soft brush. Use a proprietary stain remover if you need to but otherwise, be gentle. Please don’t use a pressure washer, it can do untold damage to the face of the stones as well as the grouting between them.
Remove dust and debris from Artificial lawns – if left to decompose they make the perfect seed bed for weeds.
Autumn colours are spectacular!
November Gardening Jobs
Ugh, sweeping up fallen leaves. It’s a rotten job but somebody has to do it. I find wearing earphones and listening to rock music helps to take the boredom out of this task. As does giving my children some pocket money to do it for me. Leaves get gathered up and put into biodegradable bags in a forgotten corner of the garden. Over the course of 12-24 months they magically turn into a rich compost that is perfect for mulching beds and borders.
Feed the birds.
Keep mowing the lawn if it’s still growing.
Herbaceous perennials will start to die back for the winter. But please resist the urge to be tidy – this is overwintering habitat for important insects such as ladybirds and lacewings.
December Gardening Jobs
Light up your garden for Christmas! Tealight candles in empty jam jars don’t use any electricity and they look amazing!
Put a thick layer of mulch over your veg beds. The worms will take it down into the soil and you’ll benefit from better water retention and a more productive garden next year.
Keep off the lawn if you can – especially if it’s frozen.
Prune trees and shrubs.
Tidy up the last of the autumn leaves and hunker down for the winter.
December is a good month to start planning a garden makeover with your garden designer and landscaper
Finally, if you find time at this busy time of year, take a long breath and think how you could use your garden better in winter time.
It may be chilly, but your well being will thank you if you can find a way to spend time as much time in daylight as possible. Do you need a sheltered spot in the garden where you can enjoy a quick coffee or just stand and stare for a while?
What does the garden look like from inside the house? Could you improve the design to give you a better view?
What does your home look like from the street at this time of view? Is it time to upgrade your property’s kerb appeal.
As always, if you have any questions or comments about garden design, I’m very happy to help. Send me an email and I’ll get back to you just as soon as I can.
