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

Commiserations from me too about the hedge hacking.

I've just spent an enjoyable couple of hours potting up bulbs. I'm rather dubious about the narcissi, which should have been planted weeks ago and shouldn't have been left getting warm by the back door, but we shall see. I have high hopes (as ever) of the tulips.

My dahlias are still going strong in the front garden, so I've left them for another week. In this freakishly mild weather, the passionflower is making new flowers.

My Iberis thinks Spring has come again, though in for a shock this weekend I think . The conifer on the drive is down now and More border edging done in the back with the branches. Need to remove the true from behind them then move soil from the front where the drive will be to the back. When the stump comes out I've a space ready for it and want yo do a fernery/stumpers thing, or whatever they're called.

For anyone thinking the would like more dahlias next year GW magazine have a 5 dahlias for postage £5.65

Just dug up some dahlias and on several the tubers split as they came out, so I have several new ones anyway.

Hello. We have our first fire of the year tonight. Can't believe it's got this late in November before we've needed one. I really should get bulbs in but the pots still have things flowering in so I've been using that as an excuse. This weekend's temperatures should put pay to that though and then I'll be forced to get on with it.

I did manage to put the gunnera into its winter coat this week. Everything else still getting sidelined by other priorities.

Ooh the Norwegian weather service is forecasting -3 deg here tonight. And even a frost on London. I'm rather glad as I like it (a bit) cold, and quite like the brown starkness of winter.

And at last I get to wear my new blue fedora.

I like your gunnera's hat Bertha. Do you have to take it off in spring or do the new shoots push through?

I got out today to do some more tidying. The ground was still frosted today in the shade, but it was warm in the lovely bright sunshine, so I had a really enjoyable time doing a tidy up of a bed with rather too much Vinca Major & Forget-me-not in.

I managed to spend a couple of hours in the garden on Sunday. First time in ages so I had a massive tidy up of the veg plot and the edible igloo and all the stuff that was emptied out of the conservatory and dumped onto the patio. Feeling happier now. I also managed to do a few pots of tulips so all tulip bulbs are now in. I still have the bulbs received from Funny following the gardening shindig to go in but they are going into the long bed which remains untouched and increasingly shabby.

I have found two small boys to rake up leaves next weekend to let my neighbour off the hook. He's done it twice already now and I think we're pushing the boundaries on neighbourly love. It took him 5 hours to do his own last weekend and mine's worse than his was! I'm not sure what the going rate is for 12yr olds, I was thinking £5/hr was reasonable. DH remains immobile and will be so for some time to come so I'm having to find more semi-permanent solutions rather than relying on favours. Small boys seem the way to go!

Ooh yes, small boys (or girls) are indeed the way to go. I still miss the lad who, more than a decade ago, had a thriving local car washing business.

5 hours of leaves, wow that must make an awful lot of leaf mould.

An immobile Dh must be tough bertha

I think I'm done with gardening for a bit and have retreated inside to the fire and a book. The gnarly old fuchsia we hacked back in the spring has made surprisingly good fire wood!

Our wonderful gardening lady ( I can't call her the gardener) has a leaf blower so our front garden is, for the first time ever, clear of them. It was fantastic at getting them out from amongst plants.

Have you got a blower Bertha? They do seem to be an efficient way of dealing with lots of leaves. (I used to get covered in the Queen's leaves and dust when I walked past Buckingham Palace in the mornings a few years ago, thanks to her blowers - but I think it's not an issue when you're wielding the thing.)

Early on Saturday morning, I ordered yet more tulips in Sarah Raven's sale - the scented ones for pots by the front door I think, some seeds and a couple of things that will be delivered in spring - a deep orange ball dahlia "Happy Halloween", and, following our visit to Funny's, some acidanthera.

Neighbour has a blower which we borrow on occasion. He did offer to loan it to the small boys but I think that's a recipe for disaster! Too much fun would be had and not enough hard labour.

Acidanthera (auto correct just changed that to acid antlers!). I too fell in love with them at Funny's, then discovered I had actually planted some! They popped up in the cut flower bed from Lidl bulbs which I thought were something totally different. They are of course in completely the wrong place and now need to be moved. Presumably I could do that once they've died back, anyone know?

I've got them too bertha you can either treat them as annuals or lift and store the same as Dahlias once the leaves have died back. Mine were in a daft place I had no idea they were so tall.

Hmmmm..it sounds like the acidanthera need lifting and storing, like dahlias and canna lilies.

Here is a nice article on them by Helen Yemm
www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/howtogrow/3305281/How-to-grow-Gladiolus-callianthus.html

The thing is where and how to store these tubers/dormant bulbs?

Will the verandah do, being a sheltered frost free outdoor space, but probably cold at night, or is the garage better?

Do people think it is too late to pot up indoor hyacinths and amaryllis?

Hmmmm..it sounds like the acidanthera need lifting and storing, like dahlias and canna lilies.

Here is a nice article on them by Helen Yemm
www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/howtogrow/3305281/How-to-grow-Gladiolus-callianthus.html

The thing is where and how to store these tubers/dormant bulbs?

Will the verandah do, being a sheltered frost free outdoor space, but probably cold at night, or is the garage better?

Do people think it is too late to pot up indoor hyacinths and amaryllis?

I actually lifted mine yesterday with leaves still attached. The corns had got really big - not sure if that's a good thing or not. I've left mine in the greenhouse to dry out and will store them in the shed.

funny I don't think it's too late for hyacinths -they'll just flower a bit later. Amaryllis often get given as Christmas presents so will be fine for them also.

The acidanthera are still looking very green and sword like I might wait a bit before lifting them though then again it would be easier to pull them up if the ground isnt actually frozen
All the asters have gone over and I've cut them right back.
The winter flowering clematis remain a disappointment this year so far: the leaves don't look thriving and there aren't any buds on Wisley cream or Jingle Bells: perhaps I ought to feed them or something
The hellebores on the other hand are beginning to flower already, along with various orange primulas left over from last year!

Thanks for that Funny. Very useful.

If you don't already have hyacinth bulbs, I suggest you do what I do & buy pots just about to flower from M&S. They are never very expensive and are far less work, and stress than forcing them myself as M&S look afgter them better than I do and they always flower!! I am always really busy at work in January and buy pots of hyacinth every week to cheer me up with their scent.

Doing it myself reminds me of the first chapter of Diary of a Provincial Lady and her travails with Lady B & anxiety over her bulbs. Not that I often talk to a Lady.

Lol. I was reading a very old version of the Sloane Ranger diary for amusement, which has monthly accounts of Caro's gardening doings.
November reads as follows:
"Purgatory now or hell later
Everything you haven't done in November you will have to hand on to the spring list of duties
Caroline buys two small bay trees at £45 each.
Henry becomes demented at the bill.
Then she goes compEEtlimad and orders three white camellias from Trehanes for pots for the new conservatory (Tubs must be round not square).
Later in the month you beat the cold by pruning the orchard and cutting the mixed hedge. Its now or February and its murder in February. Digging done by Jack. He reeks of the tea, beer, even whisky needed to keep him going"

That is a nice tip about m and s. The last time I suggested buying something ready planted in a pot, a member of Eastcote and Pinner Horticultural society sniffed through her nose gently and said their members did all their own gardening.

Haha - I popped into Homebase today & got 2 pots of 3 hyacinths that will be out in a couple of weeks. £2 each - bags of 6 bulbs ready to plant were £4 - so I have little risk of non-flowering & 2 free decent-sized pots.

Does anyone know how to stop them bending when they do flower? Maybe when you plant your own they don't?

Bending is usually to do with
a) lack of hydration
or
b) growing too rapidly indoors

I suggest starting them off in the garage and bringing into the light when the shoots are 4ins

That said, at my inner city state primary school, when we deprived infants were given free daffodil bulbs to grow at home and experience nature, it was Susan Guiver from the council flats who grew the biggest and best and her dad said it was because their garage was coldest so the bulbs grew better. I also suspect he fed them with something as he had green fingers.

My daffodil grew green shoots and never flowered. I blame the fact it never went in the garage at all but stayed in the warm indoors as we didn't know any better.

Gazinias are still flowering though I'm wondering whether to move them to the greenhouse.

Those gazenias are lovely Geoff. I've never grown them - when did they start flowering? I assume your photo is of a number of plants all together.

Those are lovely Geoff.i haven't grown them before but might next year. I've been pulling up my Acidanthera to store. I did last year and they came back but didn't flower as much, but I think that might be the weather.

at the Eastcote and Pinner Horticulture society member and Caro's Camellias.

Thanks- I bought them as cheap plugs from Aldi and gave a few as teacher presents. They flowered from June. There are 4 plants in the pot I think.

I'm very late to the leaf mould party but have several bags of leaves stashed away finally.