Dropped leaves and speckled dots indicate a thrips infestation. Luckily, there is plenty you can do about it

What’s the problem?
The leaves of my 40-year-old rubber plant are speckled with tiny black dots, turning yellow, and many are dropping off. New shoots are still growing, but the older leaves continue to fall.

Diagnosis
The black dots you’re seeing are most likely thrips droppings. These tiny insects puncture the leaf surface to drain sap, resulting in silvery streaks, mottled patches, curling and eventual leaf drop. They thrive in warm, dry conditions and are easily introduced when plants are moved outdoors. Once inside, they spread rapidly, particularly on mature, leafy specimens. Their damage is often mistaken for nutrient deficiencies or sun scorch, but the telltale sign is the combination of silvery streaks with tiny black specks.

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I love the colours in the trees at this time of year, but I know the joy won’t last. That beautiful kaleidoscope will drop to the ground and create a mulchy brown carpet. While wonderful for soil and many of the creatures that thrive as a result, leaves often need clearing up from our lawns, drives and pavements.

Many of us will reach for rakes and leaf grabbers – tried and tested tools that remain perfectly sufficient for the job for most people. However, for those of you with a larger garden, deciduous trees or a growing disinclination for thankless, laborious jobs (as I do as I get older), I’ve tested a selection of electric leaf blowers and garden vacuums designed to reduce the physical load.

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Big, blousy show-stoppers are all very well, but species tulips offer longer-term benefits and come in array of hot colours

Nearly three months after moving in and we’re still surrounded by boxes. Somewhere, possibly in the cellar or maybe the shed, there is a brown paper bag of bulbs I lifted from the old garden. Traditionally, I plant them in December – partly because life is always too busy, but also because as well as being cool, London autumns are increasingly wet, so that this helps stave off rot.

There’s something enticing about a second-year tulip. Anyone after big, blousy show-stoppers will replace their bulbs every year, and come April I will dutifully like their Instagram posts. But with my garden currently a wasteland, it feels almost perverse to insert the opulence of brand-new botanical tulips – like putting a wedding hat on when you’re in your PJs. Should I find my bag of older bulbs, anything they offer up will be a little more muted, but, crucially, free.

Corking is the most likely culprit, but it could be scale insects or fungus. Here’s how to check

What’s the problem?
My prickly pear (Opuntia) cactus is developing raised brown patches on both sides of the stem that are spreading, though the plant is still growing. Should I be worried?

Diagnosis
Those circular brown patches are a classic sign of corking. This is a natural process in many cacti, which causes the lower stem to gradually harden and turn brown, like the bark on a tree. It usually starts at the base and slowly works its way up as the plant matures. While the rough texture can look alarming, it doesn’t harm the plant. However, because corking can be confused with a fungal infection or pests such as scale insects, it’s worth a closer look. Scale insects will appear as raised, uniform bumps that can be scraped off, whereas corking is part of the stem tissue itself and cannot be removed.

Gifts for prosperity and joy; women’s autumn style essentials; and the best leaf blowers, tested

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As a kid, Diwali was five days of sensory overload: flickering lamps, friends and relatives you hadn’t seen since last Diwali, and mithai served on repeat until joy curdled into sugar-induced despair.

Growing up in Wales in the 90s, I rejected almost all of it. Being Asian felt like a marker of otherness, and when your teenage mission is fitting in, a celebration of being Indian wasn’t all that appealing. So I joined in half-heartedly, but longed for the escape hatch of a sweaty metal gig with my friends where identity didn’t feel quite so loaded.

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Learning which species can tolerate a cold snap and how your patch reacts to different kinds of frost will serve veg growers well as autumn nights lengthen

There are a few dates in the gardening calendar that all growers ought to be aware of – and frost dates should be top of the list. The exact date of the last frost of the year is anyone’s guess, but it’s important to know how to anticipate that first frosty night and how it affects our plants. Understanding which of your plants can withstand temperature drops and which cannot is key to planning what to sow and when.

There are two main types of frost: air and ground. An air frost occurs when the temperature of the air drops to or below the freezing point of water (0C or 32F), whereas a ground frost occurs when the temperature of the ground drops that low. Each can happen separately, though they often occur together, and both can damage plants to different degrees.

Blitz the autumn clean-up in record time (and turn your bounty into mulch and mould) with our tried-and-tested leaf blowers and garden vacuums

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Trees are glorious things to have in your garden, providing shelter, shade and a habitat for wildlife. Right up until the moment when their leaves start to fall off, that is, and you’re left with the annoying autumnal job of clearing up.

Traditionally, we’d just use a rake for this job, and perhaps a good pair of leaf grabbers to help transfer them to the compost or a recycling bag (see below for our gardening expert Matt Collins’ advice on what to do with your leaves afterwards). If your leaf drop isn’t particularly heavy, these remain perfectly adequate tools for the job.

Best leaf blower overall:
Milwaukee M18 Fuel Blower FBLG3-802

Best garden vacuum overall:
Stihl SHA 56

Garden getting you down? Tempted to just pave or concrete over the whole thing and put your feet up? There are more enjoyable and eco-friendly alternatives, from miniature meadows to giant borders

When faced with a muddy swamp, or a lawn that needs mowing (again), the most nihilistic among us may dream of concreting over the whole garden – and some turn that dream into reality. A recent report by the Horticultural Trades Association (HTA), which represents garden centres and suppliers, has warned that within the next five years, nearly a quarter of UK householders plan to pave or deck over at least part of their garden, and of those, nearly a third plan to cover more than half of the area. The HTA estimates this could mean a loss of about 8% of the UK’s total private green space, or 409 sq km.

“Paving over gardens with impermeable surfaces has and will continue to undermine urban resilience,” says Prof Alistair Griffiths, the director of science and collections at the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). Water can’t get through concrete, asphalt and paving, which contributes to surface flooding and overwhelms the sewer system, leading to pollution runoff. Loss of vegetation also contributes to global heating. “We’ve got these increased extremes of heat and if you lose green space, you lose that cooling effect,” he adds. Then there’s the loss of biodiversity that comes from paving over green space – not to mention the impact of a dead, grey landscape on people’s mental health. One RHS study showed that people who nurtured a couple of containers of flowers and a small tree in an urban street lowered their stress hormones as much as if they’d attended eight weekly mindfulness sessions.

It’s actually a euphorbia, and some careful pruning will solve your problem – and result in a more attractive plant

What’s the problem?
I’ve had this cactus for many years, but it keeps getting taller and soon it will hit the ceiling. How can I stop the plant growing without doing it harm?

Diagnosis
The plant in question isn’t a true cactus at all, but a succulent called Euphorbia trigona, also known as the African milk tree. Like many columnar euphorbias, it can shoot up rapidly indoors if it’s happy, often outgrowing its space. Luckily, the plant responds well to pruning if done carefully.

Plants like lupins, ryegrass and field beans can help fix nitrogen in the soil, suppress weeds and increase biodiversity

I just removed a half-filled bottle of Lucozade from the euphorbia trough. It was left there by one of the scaffolders. “Are you sure that’s Lucozade?” ventured a visiting architect, which made me see the energy drink in a new light.

All of which is to say: the garden is a mess. But there’s a lot to be said for negligence; I returned from holiday to find a sunflower had appeared in the back corner.

It’s a buildup of mineral salts from hard tap water or fertiliser. Switching to rainwater or filtered water, and feeding only in spring and summer, will help

What’s the problem?
There is a chalky white crust on the top of my spider plant’s potting mix, and the leaf tips are turning brown. Why is this happening and how do I fix it?

Diagnosis
This is a buildup of mineral salts from hard tap water or fertiliser. As water evaporates, salts are left behind and come to the surface. Over time, they concentrate around the roots, drawing out moisture and scorching sensitive tissues, which shows up as brown, papery leaf tips and edges. It can also throw off the soil pH, so plants struggle to absorb nutrients.

Taylor Swift review | Aztec broccoli | Bogof v half-price | President Putin | Pannetone pudding

Everybody is entitled to an opinion, but I’m not sure what value to attach to that of a bloke in his mid-50s about the latest album by Taylor Swift, an artist whose songs resonate with a massive core audience of women up to two generations younger than him (Taylor Swift: The Life of a Showgirl review – dull razzle-dazzle from a star who seems frazzled, 3 October). Other than to warn off other blokes in their 50s.
Ian A Anderson (bloke in his late 70s)
Cambridge

• I was very pleased to see Adrian Chiles’s appreciation of Aztec broccoli (2 October). I discovered it last year, and though it’s not as tasty as real broccoli, it’s much easier to grow and doesn’t attract the dreaded cabbage white butterfly. I’ve been happily eating the abundant little shoots from just two plants for the past month.
Hannah Hyam
Batheaston, Somerset

This ancient tradition involves offering gratitude for the growing season – and the abundance we may take for granted while many go without

I have fond, slightly surreal, memories of each autumn in primary school being filled with leaves cut from orange and red paper, bread dough sculptures of bundles of wheat, scarecrows, and tables covered with cans of food. I don’t have children myself, so I don’t know – do schools still celebrate harvest festival?

Traditionally scheduled to coincide with the annual appearance of the harvest moon – which is the full moon closest to the autumn equinox – harvest festival was a celebration of the busiest time in the growing season coming to a close. At this point in the year, when the wheat had been harvested and the fields were being cleared, rural communities would gather to give thanks for the food that would sustain them through the leaner months.

Secateur and strimmer seen better days? Give your tools some TLC with these tried-and-tested tricks

• How to get your garden ready for autumn

Garden tools have it rough, there’s no getting around it. Dragged through the mud, blunted by branches, clogged with clippings and exposed to some of the most wearing of environmental conditions – namely rain, sap and soil – you can’t help but feel the average spanner gets an easier ride than a pair of secateurs.

And yet gardening tools are among the most cherished and expensive of maintenance equipment, with popular brands such as Niwaki and Felco catering to a booming luxury market with embellished components such as leather and rattan handles, and blades forged in the mountains of Yamagata, Japan.

These are the fruiting bodies of fungi that live in compost. They are toxic if eaten but not harmful to plants

What’s the problem?
I’ve noticed tiny mushrooms popping up in my houseplant’s soil. Are they dangerous, and should I be worried?

Diagnosis
What you are seeing are the fruiting bodies of fungi that were already present in the compost – they’re very common and usually nothing to panic about. These fungi thrive in moist, organic-rich soil, and mushrooms appear when conditions are just right, often after a period of regular watering and warm weather. While not harmful to your plant, they are toxic if eaten, so keep them out of reach of children and pets.

To make home-brewed beer, why not grow your own hops? They’re easy to propagate from a rhizome or stem cutting, though they need plenty of room

My partner’s childhood home had a collection of beer barrels, each at a different stage of the brewing process, with one always ready to taste. When we moved out of our tiny flat and into a house, a brewing kit arrived in the post as a housewarming gift from his parents, soon followed by a small hop plant from an old friend, which now takes up more room than anything else in the veg patch.

This perennial has proved easy to grow. Once established, you can expect a flush of bines (similar to vines) to emerge every spring, bearing hop flowers, or “cones”, which are ready to be picked about now.

Don’t panic! This plant has a natural seasonal rhythm, so resist the urge to overwater when it’s bare

What’s the problem?
My Euphorbia ritchiei sprouted a leaf, but it was accidentally knocked off and now it’s bare. Will it grow back?

Diagnosis
Please don’t panic, this east African succulent is unusual in that it grows fleshy leaves along its ridged stems during its growing season, then often sheds them in winter. In its native Kenya, rainfall is seasonal. The plant responds by producing foliage in the wet season, then dropping its leaves in the dry season to conserve water and energy. The green stems continue to photosynthesise so the plant can survive leafless for long periods.

Nostalgic tech; autumn garden hacks; and what to wear when it rains

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When I was 18, I bought a heavily reduced MiniDisc player. This wasn’t even what you could charitably call “fashionably late”, given the format was already on its last legs, but I loved it, and because nobody else was interested, blank discs were dirt cheap. I have a vague recollection of grabbing packs at Poundland, allowing me to create a glorious self-curated library of cheap music, five years before the birth of Spotify.

I’m reminded of this because this week I’ve published a piece on the Filter about the portable audio technology that killed them: MP3 players. Or digital audio players, to give them their more accurate name, given MP3 playback is just one of many supported file formats.

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The nights are drawing in, TV programming is kicking back into gear and there are ominous warnings about “party season”. However, that doesn’t mean we should ascribe to horticultural tradition and “put our gardens to bed”.

There’s still plenty you can do in the garden to make the most of those crisp, bright autumnal afternoons and relish the offerings of the season to come. Whether squeezing some more joy out of the garden before it dies back for another winter or doing jobs your future spring self will thank you for, these are the things that define the season.

Hylotelephiums flower from late summer in borders, pots and gardens – and their brilliant but subtle colours are perfect for autumn days

A friend’s husband has recently embarked on a love affair with an allotment plot. I’m totally delighted for him, and am enjoying the new dimension of our relationship, in which we discuss compost and seed sowing over WhatsApp, and he sends me photographs of the “lotty”. It reminds me of when someone has a newborn – you get to marvel at the progress with none of the hard work.

Recently he texted me a screen grab from my Instagram stories, of a photo of my old garden. “What is this plant? There’s loads on the abandoned plot next to mine.” Sedum, I replied. Well, hylotelephium, technically.