Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

[SugarPlumTree]

Potting shed thread for those who enjoy talking about gardens and plants. Plenty of garden chairs and the wood burner lit now there is a chill in the air, please join us !

Hm yes...... How to encourage butterflies and discourage moths?

I just had a very pleasant morning raking up leaves in the light rain, and sitting with my coffee on the damp swing seat, admiring the Camellia Sasanqua bought from Tesco last year, which has the prettiest pink double flowers with yellow centres, and the pink Gaura, which continues to flower in abundance: little cerise pink flowers and purplish green foliage and very nice next to the Camellia.

I feel so lucky sitting in my garden, watching the robin perch on the newly created leaf pile, and hearing the other birds and garden sounds: leaves falling, rain dripping, squirrels pattering up the oak trunk, neighbors making breakfast, and the morning autumn mist clearing a bit to reveal a greyish but mild sky.

I have just spent a few minutes in the garden, putting a few more fuchsias and pelargoniums in the plastic greenhouse. As you say, funnyperson, it is very cheering that there are still some things in flower. Some of the pelargoniums are still flowering, so is an osteospermum and a diascia.

funny I thought for a moment you'd succumbed to text speak

My bare root Madame Alfred Carrier rose has arrived so I'm hoping to plant it tomorrow, and Dh has fixed the ceiling rose hurrah!

That's good, Geoff! My Woollerton Old Halls arrived from David Austin too - whoop - and I managed to get one of them planted this afternoon. I dug in a tonne of lovely home

oops

...home grown compost so I hope that will give them a good start. Hopefully I'll get the other one done tomorrow.

funny that's a lovely description of your garden. I'm really enjoying my Melianthus major at the moment. The foliage is going nuts in this damp weather and it looks magnificent rearing up out of the overgrown and nettle-infested South facing border. The Acer palmatum 'Bloodgood' is another foliage delight, the Crocus Rose is still flowering and the Nerines are just starting to go over.

Melianthus major is a beautiful thing. Mine died. I assume they don't like damp and it drowned. ::sadface::

rhubarb I had to google melianthus! It looks like a shrub for a largeish garden? Loved the crocus rose when I looked it up. Round here, Fatsia Japonica is in flower in quite a few of the front gardens, and the flowers are very pretty: roundels of light ivory/green and almost transparent rising on stalks above the architectural foliage.
maud I've got osteospermum stlll flowering too, next to a primrose of all things! Very odd!
I'm wondering how I can persuade DS to help me get at the leaf mould at the bottom of the wooden slatted compost heap tomorrow. I think if I succeed in spreading my very own compost I will be a proper gardener!

I love Mme Alfred Carriere. Had to dig mine out though as it was just much much too big for the space I had and constantly a bit mildewed.

Gorgeous flowers and scent though.

I've only bought it because of this lovely thread lightTripper I have planned to plant it in the front garden which is south facing but to grow up one of the many small trees, so it will be in partial shade, hope that's ok.

I googled melianthus, lovely foliage. I have one rose still flowering, lots of black spot unfortunately.

Other news I forgot I booked a plumber to do our bathroom, and he is actually coming when he said he would which is tomorrow and we haven't got tiles, bugger. Im so used to being let down I didn't actually think it would happen. Fingers crossed we can get them today!

Mine was in nearly full shade and roots under a patio, so really the wrong spot in so many ways. They are supposed to be quite forgiving and I think it was, but there are still limits!! Your plan sounds much better!! Have you seen the one at Sissinghurst?

I still have a few roses flowering and a couple of clematis started recently -Polish Spirit barely flowered last summer but has 30-odd flowers now, and all my white fuchsias are still flowering too.

I have got bored with my pots so have brought them inside. Fuchsia Thalia in particular was still flowering well, though the leaves are a bit mildewed. My fuchsias this year haven't generally been as good as they are normally.

And Convolvulus cneorum is flowering and still heading up the wall behind a trellis. It must be 2 m tall by now there. Crocus say its maximum height is .6 m, but I wonder if it grow taller as a bush if it were given more support all round.

polish spirit with flowers!

The only things flowering in my garden are cyclamen and bacopia. I'm off to buy google mme Alfred and white fuscia.

Hello everyone old and new,

Don't really have anything to report gardening wise, still no bloody garage base and now not likely till spring retirement at this rate am not bothering to even try to keep it tidy as its all messed up but am going to try to keep the stuff in the greenhouse alive and plant my tulips as soon as I have found them!

I will however follow Berthas advice and cut down my raspberries as they have finally stopped fruiting.

Need to spend sometime in the garden to find my gardening mojo, possibly with the tulips once all the architrave and skirting boards are done! Shall do it wearing my lovely red gardening fleece with the broken zip and holes in the pocket, and still more practical then a poncho

Rejoining the thread has inspired me to do some a actual gardening. I only had an hour today - but I managed to put up my plastic greenhouse and trimmed and repotted my pelargonium to keep them safe over winter. I have never bothered to do this before. I bought this lot from Lidl and they were so bright & bountiful, I really didn't want to lose them? Hiw do I keep them going? Will they need watering? I'm going to put tulips in the empty pots, should I refresh the compost?

Loads of frost here (SE London) this morning.

Hello, NANN.

Well done on erecting the plastic greenhouse. I love mine - they are far from beautiful but they do a useful job. I don't have much luck in keeping pelargoniums over winter (except, oddly, the ones that survived in my sarf London garden last winter with no protection at all) but I think the usual advice is to keep them pretty dry.

Over the weekend, I read somewhere (Guardian? Independent?) that it isn't necessary completely to replace old compost, but it does need refreshing. I'm planning to dump a lot of my old compost under the box hedge, where I hope it will improve the rather impoverished soil, and then mix in John Innes No 3 to make up the volume.

I managed to get the other Wollerton Old Hall planted this morning. It was a bit epic; the planting holes either side of the front door had been bricked over (though you could clearly see that they'd once been planting holes, and there are the remains of hooks in the wall where wires have once been strung) so I had to pull all the bricks out. Then the 'soil' underneath turned out to be solid amorphous clay, so I dug out the whole lot, discarded half and mixed up the rest with two wheelbarrowfuls of home made compost. Then a nice deep mulch on top.

Worth all the hard work though; it looks really nice to have soil and plants either side of the door instead of just more brick path. I need to choose some geraniums or something for underplanting now. There's space for a small shrub each side too.

I'm sure that Herculean work will be worthwhile, Rhubarb, once the roses are in flower (and even before). I am itching to get planting in my garden, but everything is still far too soggy. The closest I got today was burning old credit card receipts in the cheminea.

Rhubarb that is amazing how you sorted your roses I'll bet they love the start in life you've given them: I really do admire your energy. Gardening isnt just wafting around with a floppy hat, gloves, trug and secateurs and deadheading roses in July, very pleasant indeed though that is, but digging and composting and mulching too, which reminds me of this Kipling extract wot I nicked from another online forum

'But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.
For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall,
You'll find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of all
The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dung-pits and the tanks,
The rollers, carts, and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks.'

Of course Kipling was used to hired garden hands even in the potting shed whereas us lot have to find the energy to get on with it ourselves by and large.

Did someone upthread mention they fan trained a Morello cherry?

Lovely Kipling quote, funnyperson.

Yes, I try to find the energy by and large, but these days I feel no guilt about buying in help with the very heavy work or jobs that require specialist kit that I haven't got!

I am reading a brilliant garden book 'For all the tea in China". It mentions that botanists were keen adventurers and travellers in the 18th and19th centuries bringing back plants from all over the world in Wardian cases.

So I have bought the following:

Rhodedendron falconerii, with huge leaves, named after a famous head gardener at the Royal Botanic gardens in Calcutta, and

a terrarium.

lol.

maud do you have a regular gardener though? I really dont think I can justify one.

Did you get the email today from the RHS about the plant seekers' trip to China next year? It sounds like an amazing experience (although quite hard going at times, I imagine). 15 days from £4990, so rather beyond my budget!

I don't have a regular gardener, but there are some jobs that I now entrust to my friend who is a professional gardener and designer. She last came a couple of years ago to haul out some huge shrubs that I had failed to grapple with and she'll be coming again soon to winter-prune the apple trees. So, it's not even an annual visit.

Yes yes yes to buying in help with heavy work. Know thy limits and all that. I'm not averse to a bit of digging by any means, but I don't dig out mature shrubs or attempt to saw through anything thicker than my calf. A ruined back is the end of a gardener. Very important to not to damage oneself. Let's not mention eyes and pointy branches

Rhododendron falconeri is absolutely splendid funny and I've been lusting after one for some time.

I like that bit of Kipling very much, and your book sounds very interesting.

I don't saw through my actual calf, by the way, in case you were wondering.