It will not always be summer; build barns. The potting shed goes on...

[echt]

Please ignore my first, illiterate thread. I'll try again.

I hope this quotation from Hesiod captures the moment of movement from high summer to the splendours of harvest and the planing for the new year.

:o

Your sister needs to get onto Pinterest, which has lots of wonderful auricula porn photography!

Aircooled yes those late summer borders were beautiful. I got very excited about it all but frustratingly my phone memory was full so I couldn't take any pics. I only got the Auricula theatre one because I stole dh's phone and sent myself the photo.

I have about eight fancy Auriculas that I have procured at the last couple of Chelseas. They have yet to flower for me. They are in nice old terracotta pots though.

Yes, it's essential I think that auriculas should be in nicely aged terracotta pots. Fortunately I've amassed a few such over the years, even if I've yet to acquire an auricula theatre!

Maud I will swap you one for your twisted Hazel - when I eventually manage to get up there to collect it!

The sensory garden has stalled for the moment as the organisation that the preschool rent the land from 'have some concerns' but they won't meet with us till the end of October to discuss those concerns. And thus we will miss the whole of the autumn planting season.

I wasn't that keen on auriculas till I went to a local ngs garden, and they had their auriculas in a little greenhouse, and the scent was so lovely: sweet but delicate: just heavenly without being overpowering, far more than one would expect from such little doll-like flowers! Next year I will buy some from her because this year I spent my change before I saw the auriculas! They were only £3 each. At Chelsea they are way overpriced. Though I do like the terracotta pot thing.
Have been spending time under the NHS neon lights. Can't wait to go for a walk in the woods this weekend.

I bought some grit today and mulched the Auricula pots. Some already had grit on, and they were much happier, so now they all have. I've also moved them all outside as I read that they need as much light as possible at this time of year.

I picked up a mystery Streptocarpus for £3 while I was at the garden centre. Its label was missing hence 50% off, but it is a Dibleys one so quite a bargain I thought.

I also popped round to a friend's with a Rosa Hot Chocolate for her birthday, and planted it for her.

Gardening 'to do' list for the weekend:
own garden:
plant myrtle tree
take cuttings of penstemon, lavender, gaura,
plant bulbs
pot up rest of pots and rescue the mahonia
spread more mulch over beds
visit the Red House apple day

mums garden
with mum choose climbing rose to go over her new mahoosive trellis burglar deterrent
choose apple trees after Red House visit
plant bulbs
plant up a bed with dahlia, lupin rachel de thame, nepeta, and other bits from plants in pots I am not going to plant in my garden
plant the Magnolia and cornus

I figure now is a good time to plant bulbs as its about right for the tulips to go in: our nights are getting colder here and the mornings are foggy

What would you all suggest for mums 6 foot high trellis?
Its a long way from her dining room window but still visible from it: I'm thinking something very floriferous, thorny, bee friendly, large rather than small flowers, and a good doer. Perhaps a clematis to go with it.

funny I can't think of anything with large flowers other than a very thorny rose but I do like pyracantha, vicious spikes, smalll white flowers in May and really lovely red/orange berries in the winter.

I'm going to finish clearing the greenhouse today and sow some seeds.

Do any of you reuse spent compost and how? Particularly I was thinking of using it for pots with bulbs.

A rose is your best bet, funny, if you want thorns and flowers. Or a Chaenomeles, but that's a wall shrub rather than a climber - it would need tying in and training.

Geoff I chuck spent compost on the compost heap. It would be good for bulbs though.

My grapes are ripe! They are lovely. I have never had grapes ripen before. We have green ones and purple ones. Interestingly, the purple ones that have ripened first are the bunches closest to the wall - proving the theory of walls soaking up heat during the day and releasing it at night.

I did no pruning of the vines whatsoever - the usual lack of time - so now I am determined to prune them properly next year to get an even better crop.

I chuck spent compost in the compost bin but at this time of year there's a bit too much of it so I chuck it on some of the bed as well.
Can anyone please advise me? I've gone it the shed to retrieve my dried tulip bulbs and a lot of them have starting sprouting, is there any point it planting them or are they a gonner?

• beds

I think plant those tulips piza because if they are sprouting they must be alive

I agree with you all, a rose is the thing but which rose?
Dad is colour blind so red roses alas are not the thing
I was possibly thinking adelaide d orleans or wollerton old hall or kiftsgate

Here in the garden Rose Hot chocolate flowered this morning. Fantastic flower! Unbelievably romantic.

Thanks for the advice- I'm going to mix it with garden compost and use it for bulbs.

rhubarb grapes sound lovely,

It's been lovely in the garden today, Dh playing with his leaf blower whilst I tidied the greenhouse and sowed sweet peas plus ammi visage.

I checked the leaf bags from last year and have a decent amount of leaf mould ( first time I've made it) my attempt at ericaceous compost though is still dried pine needles!

Hardly got any of the to do list done. and now it is raining. Lovely light English Autumn rain, nice to be out in it and smell the oak leaves!

Still raining. Wonderful for all the plants planted by amazing friends. Getting horticultural grit later on if I can find any, so as to provide drainage for the bulbs which must go in. I bet underneath the top nice manured layer of soil with worms is solid sticky wet clay about 9 ins down just where the bulbs should go!.

geoff is this a good time to sow ammi and sweet peas, and if you do where do you overwinter the seedings?

I can hear owls! Magical!

funny according to the seed packet I'm a little late with ammi, should have been September, sweet peas can be sown now, and will flower earlier. I've got a greenhouse so they will stay in there. It's very much an experiment though!

I visited the garden centre yesterday in search of Autumn pot fillers and came away with, amongst other things 2 Cuppressus Macrocarpa. Having googled they get massive I'm hoping their growth will be slowed by the pots!

Hmm I might do some autumn sweet peas this year, and keep them in the cold frame. I'd have to fix it first though.

Inspired at the thought of song autumn sweet peas, I went to the tangled mat of dead sweet pea plants to collect seed, only to find abolutely none.

We have a tree that needs to come down as it is leaning alarmingly to the right over the garage so rang the Tree Officer to check no TPO. Apparently there is a blanket protection order for any trees Pre 1964, so basically none on our plot.

Progress is being made on our break through to the road. First branch is off conifer amd the cherry tree has been moved.

Still waiting for my chrysanthemums to flower....

I used to completely empty pots that had had bulbs or bedding in them and chuck the old compost - I usually use John Innes - on the beds as a mulch, but I read recently that you don't need to renew the compost every time and it is (apparently) acceptable to refresh the compost by mixing old with new, unless it's really depleted. Which reminds me that it's probably the year for renewing the compost around the bay tree, which is always difficult because there are so many roots. Sigh.

My chrysanthemums are in bud but still a bit of a way from flowering

Is that any trees in the country pre 1964 or just where you are?

I was trying to picture the trees in mums garden 100 years hence without any real success so I tried 50 years hence and still couldnt get over my conviction that most likely developers or over-keen grandchildren would have chopped them down! I refer to the magnolias, flowering cornus, cherries, apples etc.

Too many neon lights today. It seems like a century since I went in the garden

Hello everyone. That is interesting about the pots Maud, I will definitely try that.

We are enjoying the beautiful weather and the bumper apple crop in the orchard. We have donated damsons for damson wine and someone else is going to make cider out of the Tom Putt trees. We pick up apples every day for the pigs, even though they are growing extremely fat from the acorns. They both have their favourite oak tree to forage underneath.

I need to clean the greenhouse and get ready for all the overwintering pots I need to put in. I did manage to weed the crab apple borders today, which is the first proper gardening I have done for ages.