What to Plant in November: European Vegetable Garden Guide

In November, plant bare-root fruit trees, hedging, roses and fruit bushes while they are dormant, plus garlic, overwintering onion and shallot sets, rhubarb crowns and the last tulip bulbs. Mild gardens can still sow hardy broad beans. In a continental garden the vegetable beds are mostly done, and the work moves to frost protection.

November is the month European gardens stop agreeing with each other. A Mediterranean plot still has plenty to sow, while in an Atlantic or continental garden the real work moves from the vegetable patch to the tree line.

What to Plant in November, Zone by Zone

If you are not sure where your garden sits, our European climate zones guide explains how to find your zone and what it changes about timing.

What's Still Worth Planting

Most of what goes in during November either tolerates real frost outright or gets planted precisely because the plant is dormant and cannot be shocked by the cold.

Spinach is the one to skip. The RHS spinach guide times hardy varieties for a late-summer to early-autumn sowing, so in November the job is covering established plants with cloches or fleece, unless your climate is mild.

Cauliflower, fennel, pumpkin and beetroot are finished for the year everywhere outside the mildest Mediterranean pockets and will not establish from here. Our winter vegetables guide covers what to grow instead if you want crops standing through to spring.

Bare-Root Season Is November's Real Job

If October's headline crop is garlic, November's is bare-root planting, and it is worth treating as the main event rather than a line in a longer list. Deciduous trees, hedging plants, roses and fruit bushes go dormant in November. Nurseries dispatch them lifted straight from the field rather than grown in a pot, which makes them cheaper than the container-grown equivalent. Because they go in while dormant, they also settle into the soil over winter. They start growing on their own schedule in spring instead of recovering from transplant shock first.

The RHS hedge-planting guide puts the bare-root window at leaf fall through to late winter, and confirms bare-root stock is generally cheaper than the same species pot-grown. In Plantory we see it in the data too. Of the 277 garden plans where users have placed any plants, 75 have had a fruit tree or fruit bush added (data as of 7 October 2026).

The only real constraint is the ground itself. Do not plant into soil that is frozen solid or waterlogged. Roots cannot make contact with compacted or icy ground, and bare roots dry out fast once exposed to air. If your order arrives and the bed is not ready, heel the plants into a spare trench or a bucket of moist compost for a few days rather than leaving roots exposed.

Protect What Won't Survive the Frost

The other half of November is deciding what needs help and what can be left alone. Parsnips actually improve with frost: the RHS parsnip guide recommends waiting until after the first heavy frost to harvest, because it intensifies the sweetness and flavour. They are better left in the ground and lifted as needed, or lifted in one go and heeled into a shallow trench if the ground is about to lock up hard. Celeriac is better left in the ground with a thick layer of straw around the plants than lifted.

Dahlias, cannas and tuberous begonias are the opposite case. Unlike parsnips, their roots do not tolerate the ground freezing around them. The RHS advice on overwintering tender plants is to lift them once the first frost blackens the foliage. Dry dahlia and begonia tubers off, then store them in dry sand, soil or compost somewhere frost-free, such as a shed or garage. Canna rhizomes go into trays of sand, coir or vermiculite, kept just moist in a cold, frost-free greenhouse or conservatory.

Potted plants that are hardy in open ground can still suffer in a container, because the whole root ball is exposed to air on every side. Move anything borderline against a sheltered wall, raise pots onto feet so they are not standing in water, and wrap the pot itself in bubble wrap or fleece rather than the foliage.

Common November Mistakes

• Planting bare-root stock into frozen or sodden ground. Heel it in and wait for a workable spell instead of forcing it in.
• Leaving bare-root roots exposed while you dig the hole. Prepare the site first; minutes in the air are fine, hours are not.
• Autumn-sowing broad beans in a cold garden or damp soil. The RHS limits autumn sowing to mild or very sheltered sites with well-drained soil, and damp soil can rot the seed. In a continental garden, sow in spring instead.
• Lifting parsnips before the first frost. You lose the flavour improvement the cold gives them for no reason.
• Leaving dahlia and canna tubers in the ground after the first hard frost. Frozen tubers rot; lift them the same week the top growth blackens.

Plan Your November Garden With Plantory

November rewards planning, because bare-root stock has to go in fast and the frost dates that decide it vary by weeks between an Atlantic garden and a continental one. With Plantory you can map where new trees and hedging go before the delivery arrives, and get a frost alert from the forecast for your garden, so you can lift dahlias and cannas in time. In the Seasons view you can also carry this year's plantings over to next season as planned plantings.

When the year turns, our January planting guide carries the calendar on, with the short list worth sowing and the jobs that matter that month.