It might feel counterintuitive to be planning your most colourful garden of the year while you're wrapped up against the cold, but autumn is genuinely one of the best times to plant – the soil's still warm from summer, there's usually enough rain to keep things settled in, and plants get the whole winter to establish roots quietly before they're asked to do anything dramatic next spring.

Bulbs are the obvious place to start, and the timing really matters. Daffodils and crocuses want to go in earlier in autumn, while tulips are best left until November, once the soil's properly cooled – plant them too early and they're more prone to a fungal disease that can ruin the display before it's even started. A well-planned mix, planted at the right depth and in good drifts rather than neat rows, is what gives you that drift of colour through a Chertsey garden from February right through to May.

Herbaceous perennials and shrubs both do well going in now too, for the same reason as bulbs – autumn planting gives roots a head start that spring planting simply can't match, because the plant isn't under pressure to flower and grow top growth at the same time it's trying to establish. The same goes for trees, and it's also the right season for transplanting anything that's outgrown its spot or simply isn't working where it is – moving things while they're dormant is far kinder to the plant than trying to shift it mid-growing-season.

If you've got beds and borders that have become tired, overcrowded or just a bit uninspired over the years, autumn is also the natural moment to renovate them properly – lifting and dividing congested perennials, reworking the layout, improving the soil and bringing in new planting schemes rather than just patching gaps. It's much easier to see the bones of a border once everything's died back, which makes this the ideal time to plan changes with a clearer eye.

All of this generates a fair amount of green waste, which is exactly why a proper compost system earns its place in any decent-sized garden. Whether that's building new compost bays from scratch or simply turning over what's already rotting down, getting air back into a compost heap speeds up the whole process considerably and turns garden and kitchen waste into genuinely useful, free soil improver rather than a forgotten heap at the back of the garden. It's one of those small jobs that pays for itself many times over.

Between fresh planting and a compost system that actually works, autumn is where next year's garden really gets decided – whether that's a few borders refreshed near Weybridge or a full new planting scheme across a larger plot around Thorpe.

Let's have a chat about how we can prepare your garden over the autumn and winter so it's looking great next spring and into the summer.