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 !

I will probably do mine this weekend as we are away most of Christmas but have quite a few Christmassy guests before then: plus I can always redo it if it gets really floppy!

I bought a small wreath a couple of years ago, and now use the base I stripped out of that one as my base circle.

Must go back to the theft thread and see if she got hers back!!!

Oh she did get it back, good good...

Well done Maud, you may go plant shopping in 2015 !! I am still planning to do mine on Saturday.

Personally I feel if it is a strong plant and you take a non flowering shoot which you generally do fir cuttings, then it is OK and you are stimulating new growth to replace what you have taken and more.

Yes, taken correctly a cutting is just a bit of judicious pruning, I guess.

I really enjoyed my planting session this afternoon, but it is frustrating how little daylight gardening time there is at the moment. We may go and buy our Christmas tree on Saturday, so I might start my 2015 plant buying then!

I agree taking cuttings is fine if done as described above.

Whole plants, on the other hand... It's interesting that Kew has a big problem with ladies of a certain age stealing snowdrops - there is a large and obsessive community of galanthophiles out there who have no scruples, and who think that their age and respectability mean they are above suspicion. They are often apprehended at the exits where the rare snowdrops are retrieved from their handbags amidst squawks of disbelief that they have been searched, and mutterings that they've done nothing wrong.

Oh my! That is some cheek! I am half-remembering a tale of some gardening worthy who used to visit gardens with a furled umbrella, all the better to secrete his illicit cuttings. Nobody would ever search an umbrella.

Haha at the ancient galanthophiles, and their righteous indignation!

I'd read that the national trust had a big problem with visitors taking too many cuttings, so when I spotted a fuchsia I liked I emailed the garden to ask what it was. I was told, and also told I should have helped myself to a cutting!

It's soo interesting I don't know if any of you go on the parenting threads but if a child 'took cuttings' the outcry from the posters would be huge!!!!

Why is it okay for an adult to do ? we all pay our rates and want to see something for them as I said upthread if we ALL took cuttings there would be no flowers . Someone ought to teach the municipal gardeners how to be thrifty with our money (throwing away perennials indeed).

You're right, ppeatfruit, of course. One cutting won't damage a plant but one can imagine that some of the choicest plants in (say) National Trust gardens would be completely denuded at the end of a busy day.

I spend very little time on the parenting threads, but can also imagine a lot of posters would think it was perfectly fine for their child to "explore nature" by pulling chunks off plants!

thanks Maud.

I must admit I don't take cuttings from plants in public gardens (thishospital clematis is in a side corner and very vigorous) . What about gathering seeds though what do people feel about that?

The tulips are in. Embarrassingly I did not plant them but they are in.

Lady of the Lake is in her final position and the first grotty trellis is down and beginning of wire support in. The yellow rose that was there has been moved. This is position number 4 since we have moved in. Not too keen on it really but it was here when we came so I feel it should be somewhere in the garden. Where it is now is pushing the boundaries of rose survival though.

The important thing s that the bulbs are in, SugarPlumTree. Well done!

yes, well done

Well done sugar

I don't get cuttings as tempting as it is but I do collect seeds.

I never meant to start a cutting vs no cuttings debate I am a shades of grey, rather than black and white, person when it comes to questions of morality. Sometimes it may be appropriate to take cuttings (healthy plant, likely to stimulate more growth), sometimes not (flagging plant, likely to get arrested). IMHO... if everyone took cuttings and grew them on, I imagine we'd all have front gardens/window boxes/open spaces bursting with plant life for other people, in turn, to take cuttings from. I promise I'd never dig up a bulb or steal a flower.

The interview went really well, thank you all, but I'm not sure the job is 100% for me (great organisation, not the step up I'd hoped for). Tomorrow's one is postponed as the team are rushed off their feet, if only they'd give me the chance to help!!

I think it was good to have the debate. It was very interesting.

It's a pity about the postponed interview, NANN. Have they given you a new date?

Yes I agree Maud I won't send out the moral police force to get you NANN And I usually can see all sides of an argument (which doesn't mean I agree with them )

Sorry what or who is Lady of the Lake Sugar? She sounds intriguing.

Sorry I didn't mean to emphasise Every letter in the above

I am getting confused. The wreath thread was very funny thanks for pointing to it maud. It has of course got cold and the garden is still not put to bed for the winter

Fingers crossed for a new date for the second interview NAAN.

Lady of the Lake is a new rose - a David Austen repeat rambler. She has taken up residence against the wall at the side of my house, which confusingly is in the front.

OK: have mowed lawn (with the last of the oak leaves) and cut back dead peonies, irises, clematis viticella abundance etc. Still cant seem to get it together to actually do some planting. Lets hope tomorrow brings oomph. Then all I have to do is mulch the beds and bring the delicate stuff up into the verandah.
Next year I am getting a lemon tree. Also possibly a morello cherry
Also,having seen solanum glasvenin in bloom in a friends garden (the white version) yesterday, some of that.
The friend had mistletoe growing in her acacia and apple trees so I have brought some back for propagation. The bunches of mistletoe look stunning in the bare branches against the winter sky, even better than in photographs, and we watched the birds eating the berries, and flying off to other trees to poo on their branches. We could see from the mistletoe on surrounding trees where the birds would fly!

NANN maybe the step up would come later.

I thought she was a statue in the middle of a lake! She (the rose) sounds great.

I reckon collecting seed is fine ; it just flies away or drops on the ground anyway (or gets eaten by the birds like mistletoe) we should leave some for the birds .

So you have to get hold of the birds if you want to propagate mistletoe funny

Lady of the Lake is gorgeous. I saw her at Chelsea and thought oooooh.

The wreath making evening was fun. I should probably have steered clear of the red wine though; my wreath would have benefited from more concentration and a less 'bung it in' attitude!

I should have gone to work on the Showstopper bed today, but the soil was a bit borderline too wet and I had a hangover was feeling rather tired, so I have arranged to go there tomorrow instead.

I got some Christmas shopping done; I bought some guerrilla gardening 'grenades' for a friend - bombs of wildflower seeds that you lob into waste ground. I think she'll love them.