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 !

No plant buying next year? Nooooo! I would never manage to stick to it. But having a shared goal will help me, as I will have to confess and hang my head in shame if I don't achieve it. My first priority tomorrow is de-griming the kitchen floor - which will mean shifting the bulbs that are piled up by the back door, so that will enable me to sort them out - so if it's not too cold or raining, the bulb planting is my R&R after one of my least favourite jobs.

Thanks chaps I might risk keeping the rhodies potted (large plastic pots) as I don't really have anywhere to stick them. I have plenty of fleece so may as well protect them (and the camellia) as the temp drops in the SE.

The camellia has been in the ground since spring. It was liberated from a pot that it had outgrown. It's 2-3' tall (pale pink flower)

Blimey, Maud, I'm not so sure it's a great idea to make a wreath and hang it on my door after reading that thread! Gosh.

HaveYouSeen I think your Rhodis and Camellia will be absolutely fine. (But don't shoot me if we have record breaking cold temps and they cark it.)

Geoff I wanted to get a jumper for Rhubarbcat but DH completely overreacted vetoed the idea. I shall tell him I'm putting the heating on just for her now - we'll see if this changes his opinion.

She has just stolen my cheese while I was typing that. Ungrateful feline.

Sugar - Your jug of flowers & cat are both v pretty.

No plant buying next year??! But what would i do with my do with my time? What would we talk about?

It might not be a terrible idea actually. We could all get really good at propagating our own plants and share them instead. Please don't kick me off the thread, but I'm nursing a batch of hot pink penstemon and 3 euphorbia which I grew from cuttings taken at my local park. The thrill of growing something beautiful from very little is part of what makes gardening so exciting for me. It does take patience though, which I'm not do good at.

None of my tulips or aliums are in yet. I had yesterday off work, but had to shop/prepare for 2 interviews i've got coming up this week instead. I shall do it at the weekend as a perfect way to destress.

Good luck with your interviews NANN.

I couldn't see your flowers and cat before, Sugar, but the pic is showing now. Lovely!

The car is being fixed serviced otherwise I would really like to come because you are very artistic rhubarb
Our wreath has as its base a coat hanger. Then ivy wrapped around. Then it depends on whats looking good in the garden. Last year lots of dogwood and yellow winter jasmine and cotoneaster in berry felt like the thing. This year the yellow winter jasmine isnt as prolific so I might harvest some miscanthus grass heads. Or I might not have a wreath, as I might not have time to polish the door brasswork, which I don't want people to notice .

Good luck with interviews NANN
You have a very tidy kitchen Sugar
Rhubarb its nice to hear the cat is on the mend I keep wanting to knit it a coat.
Maud my tulips aren't in either and the wind is beginning to howl. The rhodededron has arrived from Millais nurseries. It is going in the ground this week for sure. I could never stick to no plant buying but like the propagation and exchange suggestion.
I wanted to make rhubarb crumble for a friend coming round tomorrow and went hunting to pick some but seem to have lost it..........

Propagation and exchange sounds good to me too.

Sugar If our cat wasn't sitting on the mat by the fridge I'd think she'd hopped over the channel to sit on your DD's work!!! (lovely cornish flowers btw). It's funny how they have to sit on something, she likes sleeping on dh's black bags and then disappears with just a bit of white on her nose showing, we have a dark beamed salon that doubles as his office.

How cool my cat doppelganger across the channel ! Very glad Rhubarb cat is doing well. Fair few felines on this thread then, we have three plus the dog who thinks she is their Mother. Thank you all for the nice comments about my kitchen and flowers.

Good luck with the interviews NAAN. I love the fact you are helping the local council with their pruning !

Propagation and exchange sounds very good to me and I am looking forward to seeing pictures of these wreaths.

The wreath theft thread looks like it is going to run and run! I always worry that our wreath will get pinched - I hang it on a perspex hook from the garden centre, so anyone could easily pinch it - but even though this can sometimes be quite an, ahem, challenging area, it always survives unscathed. Mind you, when DH lived on the wrong side of London, he once came back from holiday to find all his window boxes gone.

The problem with having coat hangers as a base for a wreath funny is that they are quite tough and I can't get proper round shapes from them (the Blue Peter Christmas interior dec. is different ).

NANN I don't want to sound mean but if EVERYONE "took cuttings" from parks there wouldn't be nice flowers to look at in them would there?

Yes, the reason I've always bought wreathes is that I lack the skills (or pliers) to convert a coat hanger into a nice, smooth (or smooth enough ) circle. When my friend does floristry demonstrations, he uses the ring of two concentric circles (one slightly higher than the other) mentioned earlier.

The other thing that surprises me about that thread is the number of people who have already hung up their wreathes. I would have thought they'd be rather droopy by Christmas, even with constant misting.

Good luck with your interviews nann I don't think it matters that you took Penstemon cuttings if its any thing like my council the whole lot will get ripped up and replaced biannually. I know because they gave me some primula plants destined for the compost a few years back. I still have them.

Lovely flowers sugar

Maud Me too about wreathes have you seen the dead simple one on MN ?? It's brilliant you just use a strong length of ivy as your base. Too easy actually .

I find strong ivy breaks! When you buy rolls of garden wire from a garden centre a cut bit forms nicely into a circle all on its own.

Thanks for all your good luck wishes - I'm just about to go in so mumsnetting to calm the nerves.

I know cuttings are a controversial topic... I assure you I'd never take a flower in bloom, only a snippet from a plant which looks like it could benefit from a bit of a trim. I like to think of myself as following the tradition of all the great plant hunters. If they hadn't essentially nicked stuff from all over, where would us gardeners be?

My grandpa was a prolific cutting-stealer. He couldn't help himself. Visited gardens all over the place and always had a little plastic bag stuffed in his pocket for the purpose. I don't think he ever bought a plant in his life - everything was grown from stolen seeds or cuttings.

I remember when he finally moved into an old folks' home, aged 96. As we walked through the entrance courtyard we saw a yellow climber - I don't know what it was; it was before I got into gardening in a big way - and he paused, looked at it and then with a sigh said "I was thinking "Ooh I'll have a bit of that, then remembered I don't have my garden any more."

It is a sad day when a gardener can no longer garden.

My father too had a habit of helping himself to cuttings (and even once, to my shame, a whole plant). It is, in part, a generational thing. When I was a child, my parents and their contemporaries thought it was perfectly normal and acceptable, if the garden was lacking in (say) primroses, to go out into the countryside and dig up a clump or several.

Well, I have planted most of my tulips, hyacinths and narcissi, but I have learnt a vital lesson, which I am sure you already know but am mentioning just in case. Always check your bulb order when it arrives, not (as I have done) two months later. It transpires that in a cross-eyed moment on t'internet I clicked in the wrong place and ordered the wrong collection of tulips and got one which, frankly, I don't much care for. It's far too late to send it back and, anyway, the one I meant to order is now out of stock. Ho hum. It's my own stupid fault. The ones I like least will be regifted for Christmas.

Argh, Maud, what a pain. I've done the same thing before now. And the other day I only noticed at the last minute that I had 34 in the quantity box instead of 3. Yikes.

Yes, a pain, but at least the unwanted collection contained Couleur Cardinal, which I have had before and very much do like.

I recently made a similar mistake with quantities on Ebay. I didn't notice that what I was buying was sold in pairs, so ended up with twice as many as I intended. This internet shopping is a dangerous business.

I took a cutting from a clematis in the hospital garden today, came back to read the posts!. It was a vigorous plant.
None of my clematis are looking very healthy. Not like the cyclamen and hellebores.
No gardening got done as the hospital took 2 1/2 hours instead of the expected 1/2 hour and so when a friend came round to lunch the garden looked terrible though she said nice things. The bright part of the days are always too short.

I put my wreath up after DS's birthday ie mid December.