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 !

ppeatfruit I think I might leave one branch out where the birds in my garden will eat the berries, and another branch I will have to try without the bird processing!

I remember now I put some berries on the bird table a couple of years ago which is right by an acacia tree but there's no sign of mistletoe on it. I do remember Bob Flowerdew saying he had no luck with it either. Good luck funny

Just catching up with the thread; been AWOL for a while. I made a wreath base with twisted round hazel a few years ago and re-use it each year. It's really easy as I just poke stuff through the gaps in it and wrap ivy round occasionally to secure it better. Always looks rustic but I like it. I just use whatever is about, I like ivy flowers. Holly is covered with berries here this year too.

I noticed I have chocolate cosmos still flowering today.

Here is a lovely winter garden programme from Carol Klein
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00xfkb6/life-in-a-cottage-garden-with-carol-klein-original-series-1-winter

Hello Bertha!

Hello Bertha! Good to see you here again.

Yes how are you Bertha? I like 'refreshing' my old wreaths as well, not as clever as yours though! I support local producers by buying theirs (that's my excuse anyway!). I'm feeling festive today

Ha! Has everyone else got the pop-up promoting MNHQ's guide to making your own wreath?

Yes I mentioned it upthread Maud they use a strong ivy. My ivy isn't that strong!

I had a lovely day in the garden potting up the rhodedendrons, camellia, and azaleas and putting them in a frost free place with the canna lilies and dahlias and gloriosa. I raked up the last of the leaves and mowed the lawn for the last time till next year and swept and tidied the patio.
If it doesnt rain or snow tomorrow the bulbs are going in and the mulch is getting mulched.
All this in between online Christmas shopping and seeing friends. The younger ones are all out doing their Christmas shopping in town with the lights and the window displays, but its lovely being an oldie with technological skills as it is so cosy shopping from home in the evenings after being in the garden. It does feel very festive. The man near the station is selling Christmas trees smelling of pine and next door have got theirs up already!
So where are Humphrey and Lexi?

Hello! I'm still a bit pants to be honest, every time I think things are looking up it all goes backwards again. Sigh. But here's a photo of my wreath in the winter sunshine this morning as it made me smile.

I went to a Christmas Tree farm for work recently, that was fun and festive. Buy your trees from local growers everyone!

Lovely wreath Bertha. Sorry to hear you're still under the weather.

I usually buy my tree from a local grower but this year I've cut one down from the garden! I think it's a former potted Christmas tree that someone planted in the border a number of years ago. It was in a stupid position and would have been removed when I re-do that border anyway, so I thought we might as well make good use of it!

I did three hours of digging in the showstopper bed this afternoon. My back was killing me by the end of it. It's really slow progress, and the soil is lovely so it's not like I'm slicing through heavy clay. I am starting to fear that I'm too old and decrepit to do this professionally. Five years ago I would have whistled through that border in no time; it's quite frightening. Age is a terrible thing.

Hello, bertha get better soon. I'm cocooning this weekend as it's been blowing a gale and peeing down with rain, with a week of the same in view. Lots of staking of the kangaroo paws and verbena bonariensis needed. On the other hand, as soon as the sun peeps out it's scorching.

I've been making self-watering containers for veggies and am trying them in different paces around the driveway to catch the best sun.

www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s3885151.html

DH is helping here by making trolleys to move them round. I've planted pumpkin, dwarf beans (up the side of the house) and cherry tomatoes.

That is a lovely wreath bertha, it is inspiring me to do mine today. I hope you feel better soon.
DS said the shops had fake snow machines throwing out snow on the shoppers in town!
echt that link didnt work for me. Your veg sound good. I'm hopeless at veg.
rhubarb its brilliant that the border is shaping up.
I'm reading an account of the making of Sissinghurst garden by Sarah Raven. It is brilliant, with some brilliant old photos. No fancy garden designers, just Vita's husband Harold at the weekends down from London, and their sons with string and flags marking out paths and borders!
It is interesting that Harold didnt want rhodedendrons at Sissinghurst as he thought they werent Kentish enough. They had hazel trees instead.
Bulb planting when the sun is out today.

Lovely wreath bertha

A tree from your garden is lovely rhubarb I feel the same when I dig -can hardly move the next day which is why the heavy clay border which has yellow loosestrife still remains undug.

I would have loved a real tree but Dh wouldn't. The fake woolworths tree bought in a sale is up! I used to think fake was better for the environment, I suppose in my case it is, as long as I don't replace it with another fake.

funny I like the sound of your book, I really admire Sarah Raven, she has such a good eye for colour.

It is called

'Vita Sackville West's Sissinghurst: the Creation of a Garden' by Sarah Raven

Christmas present from a friend who got it from a bookshop in Hay on Wye

I like Sarah Raven too. Yesterday was Santa Lucia day and I love the romance of it with the candles etc. In The Morville Hours book it explains that it's actually held on the shortest day so our days are now very slowly getting longer!

Echt It's so difficult to imagine that you are diametrically opposed to us, surely the sun would be almost too much for most veggies in Oz atm?

Well, we went to a nursery and bought a pot-grown Christmas tree. It cost half what we paid last year from the local overpriced garden centre and I'm hoping it will last for a couple of years. I also bought a slightly blemished streptocarpus from the houseplant shelf of doom, but, as I killed the last one within weeks, I'm less optimistic about that lasting.

I got all my tulips in yesterday. Can you believe, I ordered 120 bulbs and there still wasn't enough?? I watched Sarah Raven plant up her bulb lasagne, so packed them all in really tight. I have 2 pots left, which I may fill with allium uniflorum, as these would get lost lost in my borders.

Previously, I've always made a little hole to drop each bulb into and had trouble getting them deep enough. This time I half emptied the pot, laid all the tulips out, them topped up with soil. It was much easier.

I'm trying to get hold of my friend's bulb planting tool to put the bigger alliums (purple rain & sensation) in the borders.

I am v excited as our builder is finally coming to replace the old slabs, on the terrace at the end of the garden, with slate tomorrow morning.

No bulbs planted today owing to the usual lost visa/passport panic. DC will be the death of me. Alternating between fed up and not bovvered. Inclined also to murder them very slowly and painfully. As they are out of the paediatric age range, this is perfectly compatible with my vocation.

Where are the offspring jetting off to now, funnyperson?

I have repotted the new camellia today and bought yet more tulip bulbs - this time, Burgundy.

Well they were both going to Burma but now one of them doesn't appear to be able to. I'm hiding under the duvet.

those tulips look nice

Eek. I don't blame you for hiding under the duvet!

Yes, I'm very excited about the bulbs. I bought them from a gardening pal's stall at the local market and liked them even more when I got home and looked for a picture.

Lovely tulips Maud - will you put them in the ground or in pots?

Oh dear funny - hope that duvet is at least 13 tog.

I planted up the the little alliums, plus 2 daffs for the DD school competition. I also cut back and mulched the dahlias - I'm too lazy to pull these out. I used the bark/manure/topsoil mix from the veg bed to mulch. My cats have shat in it so many times, I no longer fancy home grown potatoes.