November is a good month to look back at how your garden developed over the summer months and to perhaps decide you would like to change some aspects of it. We are not necessarily talking about a complete garden makeover, but even the best gardens need reworking as the years go on. Perhaps a border is getting too congested, or the garden looks stunning in spring and then fizzles out becoming boring for the rest of the year, or the winter garden has no redeeming features – all these can be rectified.

Get rid of roses that do not merit saving

I read a very interesting article about roses recently by the wonderful Val Bourne, which said that too many of us were keeping roses that did not merit saving, either through too much disease, or poor flowering etc. This article told us to get rid of them and to plant better varieties.

It is true that one tends to hang on to roses more so than any other plant, and I know that I need to be much harder this winter and dig up two or three that, to be honest, have not pulled their weight for years.

Be aware of ‘rose replant’ disease

When replanting a rose in the same spot you have to be aware of ‘rose replant’ disease. Somehow, the rose infects the soil so the new one doesn’t do well. The old advice was to remove a few buckets of the old soil and replace it, but now they reckon that using the Mycorrhizal fungi granules (sold by garden centres) will do the trick. I would also remove some soil just to be on the safe side.

The bare-root roses are available this month until March from rose breeders, so you can order them and get first pick. Good varieties which have the old-rose looks but not the disease are ‘Joie de Vivre’, ‘The Duchess of Cornwall’, ‘Natasha Richardson’ and ‘England’s Rose’.

Hybrid tea and floribunda roses need to be cut back by about one-third now, which will stop wind rock loosening the roots through the winter. Also cut off any dead, diseased or crossing growth. Leave the rest for the spring pruning.

Beat the spring rush

When the mowing has come to a halt later this month (although last winter the lawns seemed to grow all through the winter too!) book your mower in to be serviced, thus beating the spring rush. Now is also a good time to clean and oil tools and send off secateurs to be sorted out if they are in a bit of a state.