"In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt." This month's discussion in the potting shed.

[MyNightWithMaud]

Grateful thanks to the magnificent Margaret Atwood (via A Mighty Girl) for the quote.

I have just come indoors after a delightful couple of hours' pottering in the garden. It's far warmer than yesterday and everything feels optimistic and vernal again, after yesterday's Arctic blast.

High point: Realising that most of last year's cuttings have taken. Given that I am useless with seeds this, I think, is my propagating future.

Low point: Realising that my newest fairy lights have already failed.

Bertha - I have tried and tried with hanging baskets but my most successful ones have been the ready made up type from homebase

Halsall - nice ducks!

I got the job! I'm itching to call the landscapers in but DH says I must wait until the ink is dry in my contract.

Delighted to hear about the ducks and hope Maud have a lovely night. Well done Rhubarb with the quiz.

A gorgeous day here today. I've watched Monty and am going to get up in a minute and put my new delivery of flowers into water. There should be some Ranunculus this week that have apparently just come into flower and am looking forward to them. Animals need to go to vet later for injection (dog) and sore tail (cat) then I think I am going to go amd peruse dahlia selections.

I need to move a Veronica I have planted somewhere too shady and plant a rose. Will see what other perennials I can split to go into new flower bed. I need shade plants really amd this is when I wish I could remember what I have stuck where. My forget me not an tulip combination has failed but I have a tulip amd primrose combination instead, there were a fair few primroses in the front and I've transplanted them into the back. Monty was saying best time to split is after flowering so will do that soon.

There is a vague plan forming for the back garden which is an L. One day I think I want to build a new porch and front door ad have the back garden round all three sides of the house. For now it is staying an L. One end is the veg patch, coming down from that is the cottage border, leading to a gravel triangle with swing seat in the corner. That is the tropical bit but has a long way to go until my bamboo and palm tree are a decent height. The children take the mickey a bit as it houses the Christmas tree so I've decided it is a Norwegian themed tropical corner.

Round from that is a raised bed which will probably be joined by another, these are to be cutting patches. That leads along to woodland border, ending at shade border by garage. Opposite woodland border is the deck and a new narrow border is being dug by edge of deck to grow plants to cover it ( it raised a good few feet off ground)

Front garden is fairly shrubby. Along drive is raised bed under shrub which has a fair few plamts established. Then also at front there is greenhouse with tiny pond, utility area and raised bed by neighbours new fence which houses new rose bushes that are an experiment to be grown for cutting (think probably not enough sun though.

It's only taken me 12 years to work this out !

Fabulous news about the job NAAN I think if I were you today I would be in a garden centre or nurserty and unlikely to come home empty handed !

Good advice about feeding when you water small pots and HBs; I use my coffee and tea leftovers mixed with water and always do that to my houseplants which (apart from the lemon trees ) do very well. My tea tree plant is smashing after I pruned it drastically.

Your garden sounds a bit of a handful like mine sugar but without the caves!

Yes well done NAAN

Well done on new contracts, conifer knowledge and return of ducks!

The film was great fun - maybe not a cinematic classic, but great fun nevertheless. It was lovely to meet Bearleigh and to meet funnyperson again, who came bearing gorgeous planty gifts. We must do a bigger meet-up and plant swap soon.

Ooh Maud Pleased you had a nice meet up. Was that the film set in the 18th C ? So not sooo brilliant then?

Yes, the film about le Nôtre, directed by Alan be still my beating heart Rickman, who did a Q&A afterwards. I don't the film can fairly be described as brilliant, but not is it compost (as the review in the Guardian apparently dubbed it!). It made for a lovely, sociable evening.

Argh. Fat fingers --> typos on phone.

Sugar, those plans sound amazing - I'm in awe!

I must say I have a bit of a tendresse for Alan Rickman but I had to laugh and laugh at that Peter Bradshaw review. I enjoy his demolishings much more than I do his raves. He wrote a hilarious one of 'Eat, Pray, Love' which was entirely in sentences Of. Three. Words.

Duck update: they arrived about 2 minutes after I stepped out into the garden. Are they watching me? They've had food and water and have retired beneath the garden bench for a kip. This is how they spend most of the day before flying off to wherever they came from, sometime in the late afternoon. Very happy they're back.

My garden is all very small scale Ppeatfruit so hopefully when all planted up it will be fairly easy. Yours looks big and gorgeous and I would love those caves! Halsall, the plans have to make it into reality, don't hold your breath.... I have a lovely image of sleeping ducks.

Had a look in garden centres a Dahlias. Came back and ordered Sarah Raven's Cardinal Collection, Orange Collection and one other. That is an attempt to kind of make the Venetian collection but include Blue Bayou that I liked the look of. I want the hundreds of flowers she claims they give in the summer.

Sugarplum It's bit of a headache tbh, esp. now there are more areas that need 'gardening' thanks to dh's slash and burn mentality! I planted a climbing sweet Jasmine and honeysuckle to cover some unremovable fencing at the gate of the 'chicken garden'. It still has a naked pond waiting for its liner to 'do' as well Aaaaaah!

Talking about burning we now have 2 piles waiting to be burnt, one of which is effing enormous, (awaiting a Nov. 5th party)!! This is of course wrong because it's contrary to my sustainable, organic instincts!! And I think we can only have bonfires in the winter, so I may have missed the boat again this year .

I'm glad the ducks are back, they sound lovely. The local hospital used to have a bit of garden completely built around only accessible by doors or by flying In, Which is what a couple of ducks did every year to nest. The restaurant put out a washing up bowl of water for the ducklings and when they were big enough the rspcb had to catch them and relocate them to the pond. They may still be doing it but I no longer work there.

sugar your garden sounds lovely.

nann great news.

We've had a pleasant day looking at sheds for my garden tools, and pottering. I've been potting on things, Dh is busy making me wooden planters and a cold frame.

A Little Chaos definitely isn't a cenematic classic but if you go along knowing it's a complete fantasy that a woman in 17C France would be engaged in civil engineering, and garden design and just accept it, you may enjoy it. I was a bit grr at all that until Alan R said quite casually 'it's a lie' and I could see maybe I'm too literal. It is ravishing to look at, with some good acting. Not very sound horticulturally, but again go with it. The Q&A bit was really interesting and I may well go along to others.

It was lovely to meet funny and Maud, and we had a lovely chat and a small plant exchange. We did talk about maybe having a bigger meet and exchange , as funny mentioned ( I htink it was funny - MN playing up on iPad again so can't check).

Congrats on the contract NANN!

I planted the potatoes today, helped by BabyBearleigh who seems to quite enjoy digging, and was a lot quicker than I. My spade hit something metal while I was digging, & revealed something round and large and metallic, buried about 20 cm down in the former flower bed. Naturally I thought it could be the end bit of an unexploded WWII bomb, but MrB reassured me, & it turned out to be a large blue enamel bowl that clearly held something, and then had been buried. A while ago judging by the rust. I'd like to know the back story to that.

Ooh that's interesting Bearleigh!

Congratulations NANN.

Great sounding plans, Sugar.

I think I shall have to go to see A Little Chaos. I was a bit about the idea of Kate Winslet's character, but I'm prepared to go with it!

I strimmed the verge of our lane this afternoon. I'd like to plant some primroses, wood anemones and native daffs along it, but the grass is quite lush so I fear they'd get lost. No sign of the foxgloves I moved there last year.

Congratulations NANN!

Thank you for hanging basket tips, I shall have to feed more. I normally mix some water crystals and slow release food in before I plant but maybe they need more. I too think I plant too sparsely. If it doesn't work this year I think I shall buy some ready made give up.

I am recovering from a big night out last night but we did pop into a garden centre on the way home today to buy more pond plants. That is now £300 on pond plants & it still doesn't look enough. We're going to make a bog garden alongside it as well now.

I'm planning on going to A Little Chaos with a couple of friends, glad it was worth watching, sounds like you had a very pleasant evening.

Your plants should spread, Bertha. It's good if they have plenty of space to fill. I'd love a bog garden.

Just watched GW. Nice to see Borde Hill on there, which is just up the road. I don't thiink I've ever been in magnolia season - I shall be hot footing it up there now!

Well done NANN!

I got in the garden for an hour after DS2 was in bed, pottered about planting a couple of scented geraniums I got from the garden centre, cleaned out the sandpit, potted on some chocolate and black pepper mint cuttings that survived the winter. Rather pleasingly discovered that the silver fern I bought from Hampton Court last year hadn't died when our house sitters neglected to water it, but was sprouting nicely in the far corner behind the greenhouse.

Tomorrow I have to bully get the children to help me clear their beds before planting some candytuft, sort out the mints that are in buckets by chopping up and re-potting, and using the rest to pot up some more for the school plant stall, sowing some sunflowers with the children, trim back the ferns in the pigscot gardens, pot on the 36 geraniums I have bought for the terracotta pots on the driveway, sow some cosmos to go in the front garden and sow some more peas.

mmm. Not sure I will get through that lot!

Alan Rickman's voice is a lot less deep in real life and it was very interesting hearing him talk about making the film and important that he admitted that a lot of the plot and casting was a cinematic lie for the sake of the film.

As Bearleigh says, it would have been otherwise quite difficult to accept a woman working as an executive gardener at Versailles in 1868, or wearing a machine embroidered shawl, or the choice of perennials in the gardens or the way the horticultural seasons changed from frame to frame. Its not the best film I've ever seen but it is pleasant and the gardening theme is unusual.

It was lovely seeing the other 2. It is nice to go with gardening friends! We had food and a chat in a candlelit basement dive in Shepherds market with Toulouse Lautrec posters on the walls!

Just been down to check on my broody chicken and heard cheeping! Can't wait until tomorrow morning to see chicks. Sorry, so excited, I had to share!

oooh Bertha, keep us posted

It sounds lovely funnyperson, what a great evening.

sorry I meant 1680 something

Not sure how big the bog garden will be Rhubarb as it involves more digging. DH has just recovered from last time. Soil is so hard it needs pick axing out. Should be good though. I'm trying to figure out if I can run a hose from the water butt overflow permanently into that bit to use water that normally just goes down the drain. That is of course assuming it rains sometime soon...

Picnic and farm trip planned tomorrow. It's sure to rain tomorrow.

Halfway through autumn and the first really cool days have begun. WE lit the wood-burning fire for the first time and I got up the ladder to set the ceiling fans on the winter setting. Out for a run I noticed the first camellias in bloom.

DH levelled the container for the pot pond so I'll fill it up with water, put in some platforms, and get some plant shopping done next weekend. Giving up the unequal struggle to get grass to grow on the nature strip, I'm planting tussock-forming grass which will look after themselves and look good all year round; prickly spear grass and knobby club sedge.

Bertha - I'd love to hear about your bog garden. I'm thinking of doing a pond and bog garden over the summer, and would love some advice about what works or doesn't work from people who have done it.

Oh, and congratulations NANN!