Autumn

I love autumn in the garden: some gardeners say autumn is the beginning of the gardening year, but is there really a beginning and an end?  Or is gardening rather an ongoing process? No sooner has summer waved goodbye than next spring already beckons,  thanks to bulbs.  These little packs of energy give something to look forward to through the dark days of winter.  I've planted hundreds this autumn, and I love going shopping for them, for myself and my clients.  Today I spent an enjoyable 3 hours planting not just bulbs, but primroses, heucheras and tiarellas. 

Bulbs in the Cutting Patch

 

This autumn we’ve potted up some bulbs in pots.  This is an experiment – they will eventually be planted out in the cutting patch, which is at this moment full of dahlias and chrysanthemums still flowering  in all their glory.  We want a ‘cutting patch’ of bulbs to flower continuously from January to April, or farther.  With that in mind, we have winter-flowering red carnations, winter aconites, snowdrops, narcissi, and the tenby daffodil.  We’ll add some tulips and hellebores.

 

 

In August

The cutting patch has been a revelation this year.  Previously, it was covered in decking, but that had to go.  In March I dug it over and added lots of home-made compost, then planted it with pinks, dahlias, zinnias, evening primrose, chrysanthemums, and sowed seed of cornflowers, cosmos and stocks. In mid June it was a riot of colour, not to mention fragrance. We never used the ‘cutting patch’ as a cutting patch – we just enjoyed the jewel-like colours.  We’ll see what happens through the winter.