Get ahead with your gardening tasks for October

Here are three top tasks you could be getting on with next month and planning for now to get ahead of the game:

Berries such as Lycon berries can be collected from shrubs and trees and sown straight away. Squeeze the seeds out of their surrounding pulp and sow them in a compost of equal parts soil, course grit and coir compost. Put the pots in a coldframe.

Fallen leaves should be raked up within a few days where they’re covering lawns and plants, or they could yellow and damage foliage. Leaves can be left to rot down on bare soil. Make leafmould by storing collected leaves in a wire-netting container, or in black polythene bags with a few holes pierced in the sides. In a year or so you’ll have a wonderful soil conditioner.

Tall deciduous shrubs like roses, tree mallow (lavatera) and butterfly bush (Buddleia) that will be pruned in early spring, are best cut back by about a third now to prevent wind-rocking.