September signals the shift from summer into autumn – cooler days, earlier evenings, and the first touches of golden leaves. It’s also one of the best times to prepare your garden for the year ahead. With the soil still warm and moisture levels rising, conditions are ideal for planting, tidying, and refreshing. Here are the key jobs to tackle this month.
🌱 Plant Hedging for Privacy & Shelter
Autumn is the perfect season to plant new hedging. The roots establish in the moist soil before winter, meaning strong growth come spring. Whether you’re creating boundaries, adding privacy, or sheltering your garden from the wind, hedging is a smart long-term investment.
- Popular choices include laurel, beech and hawthorn. Also available Griseline, Buxus Sempervirens and Euonymus Japonicus green spire (1m max. height)
- Space plants evenly for dense, uniform growth.
- Water well in the first year until roots establish.
👉 Browse our range of hedging plants, stakes, and soil improvers in store at Stakelums garden centre to get your hedge off to the best start.
🍁 Add Autumn Colour with Foliage
As flowers fade, foliage takes centre stage. Adding plants with striking autumn leaves or evergreen colour keeps your garden vibrant well into winter.
Japanese maples bring fiery reds and oranges.
Mahonia & Viburnum flower during winter
Nandia changes colour with the seasons ,4 seasons 4 colours
Heucheras add rich purples, lime greens, and bronzes.
Evergreen shrubs like pittosporum provide structure and year-round interest.
👉 Pair these with autumn/winter bedding plants such as violas, cyclamen and pansies for instant seasonal colour.
🌳 Lawn Maintenance
Your lawn may look tired after summer use. September is your chance to rejuvenate it:
- Rake away moss and thatch.
- Aerate compacted areas with a fork.
- Overseed thin patches.
- Apply a specialist autumn lawn feed to strengthen roots before winter.
👉 At Stakelums we stock walk-behind mowers, ride on mowers, robotic lawnmowers and lawn feeds to keep your grass healthy.
🌸 Plant Spring Bulbs
It may feel early, but planting bulbs now ensures a splash of colour when spring arrives.
- Choose daffodils, tulips, crocuses, and snowdrops.
- Plant in groups for maximum impact.
- Mix bulbs with foliage plants to extend interest throughout the year.
- Use Lasagne planting to create a continuous display of flowers – later flowering bulbs planted the deepest layer with smaller, earlier flowering bulbs are placed in shallower layers on top.
✂️ Tidy, Prune & Refresh Borders
- Cut back faded perennials and remove annuals that have gone over.
- Deadhead roses to encourage one final burst of flowers. (Online saying to prune about a ft just above a leaf so they won’t die back any further.)
- Trim hedges lightly to maintain shape (avoid heavy cutting this late). (Online saying now is the legal time to cut hedges in Ireland but make sure to check for birds nests and don’t cut too far back)
👉 A pair of sharp secateurs, shears or hedge trimmers will make light work of these jobs.
🍂 General Autumn Prep
- Clear fallen leaves from lawns and borders to prevent disease with a rake or leaf blower
- Store away or cover garden furniture.
- Clean tools, barbecues, and equipment before winter.
👉 Stakelums have a wide range of covers and storage solutions to protect your garden essentials.
September is all about preparing for the year ahead while enjoying the last bursts of late-summer growth. By planting hedges, adding colourful foliage, and refreshing your lawn and borders, you’ll set your garden up beautifully for the seasons to come.
At Stakelums Home & Hardware, Thurles, we stock everything you need – from hedging and shrubs to bulbs, lawn care, and garden storage. Call in today or shop online at www.stakelums.ie and give your garden the care it deserves this September.