I know that it has been a very odd year but now is the time to start thinking beyond summer. With some planning your garden can look good through to the first frosts, and beyond.  Plants that give a late summer burst of colour include dahlias, Japanese anemonies, red hot pokers (kniphofias), asters, penstemons and, for shady areas the rather cute toad lily (Tricyrtis). If you’ve got colour gaps in the garden then leave yourself a note to either plant perennials in these in the autumn, or annuals next spring. Or both! Ginger lilies and cannas are great for late summer. Though usually considered tender, meaning they should be lifted in the winter, I leave mine in the ground (along with my dahlias), simply covering them with a layer of garden compost. They’ve survived -10^oC quite happily.

Get sowing vegetables for the autumn. Salad leaves, salad onions and spinach can all be sown now, and it’s great month to sow pak choi, as flea beetle activity is less of a problem. This common pest is the cause of the multitude of little holes in pak choi and rocket leaves earlier in the year.

Collect seeds for next year. Seeds for hardy annuals like calendula, Californian poppies, cornflowers and Nigella (love-in-a-mist) can be sown now, with the young plants kept indoors ready for planting out next spring. Alternatively, let nature take its course and simply scatter the seed in the garden. You’ll probably get more coming up than you need.

Many shrubs will root from cuttings taken now. The cutting should be a healthy, non-flowering shoot, 10-15cm long, with two sets of leaves below the top set of leaves. Trim below a node (the point where the leaves join) and remove the leaves on the lower nodes. Cut any remaining large leaves in half to reduce water loss – you’ll be left with a stump with a couple of small leaves at the top. Place the cuttings around the edge of a pot containing a gritty compost mix. Firm, water and keep somewhere damp; I use my seed propagator but a zip-lock bag works just as well. Hydrangeas, pelargoniums, lavender and clematis can all be propagated in this way. Free plants!

You may have to travel a bit if you want to visit a National Garden Scheme garden as garden openings are now tailing off. However, Stoberry Garden in Wells and John’s Corner in Bedminster are both fairly local and open this month. Full details of all NGS openings are available on the NGS website, or download the app.