Rosebie Morton’s November Gardening Guide 2025

Just because the leaves are falling off the trees, doesn’t mean you should pack away your gardening tools until the spring. Now’s the time to get planting so you will have plenty of trees and flowered shrubs to greet you in the warmer months. But what’s best to plant and how? Rosebie Morton, founder of The Real Flower Company, is here to help with her November gardening guide.

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The clocks may have gone back, but the soil is still warm, which means it’s an ideal time to be planting everything from a tree to a shrub, depending on available space. There is a fantastic selection of small trees which give year-round interest. One of my favourites is amelanchier (commonly called juneberry or snowy mespilus), with its stunning starry white flowers in spring, edible berries in summer (which the birds love) and great autumn colours. It can be grown as a small tree or a multi-stemmed shrub for the back of a bed and doesn’t need much space.

Other favourites to plant at this time of year include cercidiphyllum japonicum – also known as the toffee apple tree due to the burnt sugar smell of its leaves – which has beautiful heart-shaped leaves which turn a lovely pale yellow or sometimes a smoky pink in autumn. Similarly, acer griseum is commonly referred to as paper bark maple due to the cinnamon coloured trunk which attractively peeks through the flaking chestnut bark. It’s very slow growing with lovely red autumn foliage, making it an ideal candidate for limited space.

Another firm favourite of mine is a Japanese maple, such as acer palmatum bloodgood or acer palmatum orange dream. Many acers are ideal for containers because they are so slow-growing and compact. Acer palmatum beni-maiko (which translates to ‘red haired dancing girl’) is definitely worth considering for a container. Acers do well in sheltered places out of direct sunlight and they hate wind.

A shrub which is often overlooked but well worth searching out is the lily of the valley shrub, pieris japonica, another ideal plant for a container. In the winter, it is covered in flowers which are either white or pink and resemble lily of the valley flowers, hence its name. These finish in spring to be followed by stunning young red leaves, which then turn pink to cream and eventually a lovely green colour. It prefers ericaceous soil, so it will thrive in more acidic ground, but if – like me – you have chalky soils, then plant it in a container using ericaceous compost. All trees and shrubs grown in pots will resent drying out and will need good compost plus plenty of feed in their growing season, but otherwise will give your garden, patio or balcony some wonderful interest throughout the year.

If you don’t fancy planting a tree or shrub but still want to get something growing, then this is the perfect month for sowing sweet peas to get really strong plants and an early flowering in 2026. Sweet peas are undoubtedly one of the best annuals to give you a mass of scented flowers throughout the summer months. The ultimate cut-and-come-again flower, the more you pick them, the more flowers they produce! Sow seeds in deep pots (they hate root disturbance) – root trainers are ideal as are loo roll tubes to give sweet peas the best start. Use good quality, peat-free multipurpose compost and sow two seeds per pot, 2-3 cm deep. Water them well and then put them in a cool, protected place for the winter; a greenhouse or cold frame is perfect, but failing that, anywhere cool will suffice. As soon as the sweet peas have four proper leaves, pinch out the tops, which will encourage the plants to bush out and not get too leggy. Leave them for the winter, just watering enough to keep the plants moist but not waterlogged. The plants can be hardened off in spring before planting them out into their final positions.