Autumn in the UK is a slow handover. One week the garden is still giving you the last of the cosmos and a handful of late raspberries; the next there's a brown film of leaves across the lawn and a frost warning on the forecast. October and November are the months when a few well-timed jobs decide whether your plot comes through winter intact or needs repairing in March. Here's what to do, roughly in the order it needs doing.

Clear the leaves before they smother the lawn

A few fallen leaves are harmless. A thick, wet layer left sitting on grass for weeks is not: it blocks light, traps moisture and gives moss, algae and fungal disease an easy foothold. Rake little and often rather than waiting for the last leaf to drop. Ten minutes every few days is far easier than clearing a soggy mat in December, and leaf fall usually happens in two or three concentrated bursts anyway.

Use a spring-tined rake on lawns and borders. A blower is fine on paths, patios and gravel, where raking drags stones around and leaves you with a tidying job on top of a tidying job. Pay particular attention to fine turf, low-growing alpines and small bulbs, and gravel areas that quietly become a leaf mulch. If you have a pond, net out leaves before they sink; a few on the surface are fine for wildlife, but masses rotting at the bottom of a small pond will cloud the water and feed algae.

Turn the waste into leaf mould

The best thing you can do with a bag of leaves is nothing, for a year. Fill a wire cage or a few bin bags with holes punched in the sides, damp the contents if they're dry, and tuck them behind a shed. Oak, beech and hornbeam take a year or two; sycamore, lime and horse chestnut break down faster. The result is a crumbly, dark material that's ideal as a mulch or a soil improver, and it costs you nothing but storage space.

Plant bulbs in October and November

Bulbs are the best value in gardening. Daffodils, narcissi, crocus, alliums, snowdrops and fritillaries all want to be in the ground from September through November, while the soil is still warm enough for roots to form. Tulips are the exception: plant them in November, even into early December if the ground isn't frozen. Later planting reduces the risk of tulip fire, a fungal problem that thrives in mild, damp autumn conditions.

A few rules make the difference between a display and a disappointment:

• Depth: roughly three times the bulb's own height. A 5cm daffodil bulb goes in about 15cm deep.
• Drainage: on heavy clay, sit each bulb on a small handful of horticultural grit so it doesn't rot over winter.
• Orientation: pointy end up. If you genuinely can't tell, plant it on its side and it will right itself.
• Grouping: plant in drifts of a dozen or more. A natural look comes from throwing a handful and planting where they land, not from single-file rows.

In pots, layer them: biggest bulbs deepest, smaller ones above, with a little grit between the layers. Squirrels and mice dig up crocus and tulips, so pin mesh or chicken wire just below the surface, or plant deeper. Mark where you've worked with a cane or a scatter of grit, otherwise you'll spear the lot with a fork while planting something else in spring.

Lawn care: the last cut and a breath of air

Grass keeps growing while soil temperatures stay above roughly 5C, so don't put the mower away just yet. Raise the cutting height a notch or two for the final cuts of the year. Never mow a frosty lawn, and avoid cutting when the ground is wet enough to squelch — you'll compact the soil and tear the blades, which leaves an opening for disease.

Autumn is the right time to aerate, pushing a garden fork in 10–15cm deep every 15cm or so and rocking it gently. If you have a hollow-tine aerator, so much the better. Scarify only if there's a genuine layer of thatch and the grass is still growing. Follow with a sandy loam top dressing brushed into the holes, and feed with an autumn lawn feed — low in nitrogen, higher in phosphorus and potassium — to push root growth rather than soft top growth that frost will knock back. Bare patches sown in early October have a decent chance; leave anything later than that until spring. Finally, keep off the grass on frosty mornings.

Protect tender plants before the first frost

First frost dates vary enormously. A sheltered coastal garden may not see one until December, while inland and northern spots can be caught in October. Watch your local forecast rather than a date in your head.

Before that first frost:

• Move pots of citrus, olives, pelargoniums, fuchsias and tender herbs under cover. Cool and bright beats warm and dark — these plants are resting, not growing.
• Wrap terracotta and glazed pots in bubble wrap or hessian, or move them against a south-facing wall, and stand them on pot feet so they don't sit in freezing water.
• Lift dahlia tubers once the first frost has blackened the foliage. Cut stems to about 10cm, dry the tubers somewhere airy for a week or two, then store them in barely damp compost or vermiculite in a frost-free shed. Label them; they all look the same by February.
• Tie straw around the crown of tree ferns, and fleece banana plants and anything else borderline.
• Mulch borders with well-rotted compost or bark, keeping it clear of stems and crowns. Water dry ground first — mulching bone-dry soil achieves very little.

Smaller jobs worth doing while you're out there

None of these take long, and all of them save time later in the year.

• Clean greenhouse glass so winter light gets through, and ventilate on mild days to keep the air moving.
• Check tree ties and stakes; loosen anything that's starting to bite into the trunk.
• Plant bare-root hedging, roses and fruit trees from November onwards, while they're dormant.
• Plant garlic — autumn varieties settle in best from October to November.
• Leave seedheads on sedum, echinacea and teasel for the birds and for structure. Cut back only what's floppy, diseased or blocking a path.
• Clean, dry and oil your tools, and sharpen the secateurs.
• Check leaf piles and bonfire heaps for hedgehogs before you burn or bag them.

If you only do three things

Time is short and the weather is unreliable, so prioritise. Leaves off the lawn, tender plants under cover, bulbs in the ground. Those three jobs protect the most and give the most back. Everything else — the edging, the greenhouse, the mulching — can wait for a dry afternoon in December or a bright one in February.

Work at a comfortable pace, lift with your legs rather than your back, and treat a short day as a finished one if you've ticked off one of the three. The grass will forgive a missed cut. The bulbs won't forgive being left in the shed.

Photo: snibl111 / Pixabay