The Janus-headed gardener

I'm gearing up for my last flowery market of the season on Saturday.  It all feels very autumnal with hydrangeas and dahlias in their rich colours, along with hips, haws and other berries.

But just as I'm looking at the end of my market stall year, I'm looking at the start of the next season, planting daffodils and alliums for next spring and sowing hardy annuals in the greenhouse.  So far, my cornflowers have been amazing - up and at 'em just two days after sowing!!  Calendula, scabious and a grass which is new to me - agrostis Nebulosa - are all zooming along, trying to keep up with their neighbours.  Ranunculus which I planted in the greenhouse border are also putting up their first tentative leaves and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a good spring crop next year.

I've got anemone 'Galilee' corms winging their way to me via Royal Mail as we speak; tulips resting patiently til November in the cool, dark garage, and the allotment seed catalogue calling loudly to me from the living room.  I think didiscus is going to be my new flower to try in 2015 as I fell in love with it at a recent meeting of flower growers when I saw it in the flesh.

2014 has been a good year for Tuckshop Flowers and we seem to have poked our flowery heads a little further above the parapet into the public consciousness.  Hopefully all these seedlings that I'm nurturing now will find a good home in a new patch of land in 2015 so that I can grow my business even further.

Picking autumn raspberries at the allotment yesterday, it didn't feel like two minutes since the start of spring, and yet there I was, along with other plot holders, clearing out finished crops and doing the first bits of winter digging.

But before we get to next spring, we have a spot of wreath-making to do over the Christmas period, so I'd better toughen up my hands and keep a beady eye out for wreath ingredients.

Rabbit in the headlights

The sun is out today and I just didn't know which way to turn on returning from the school run.  Paralysed by choices.

Jobs to do included:

• Smashing up concrete in hardstanding area to finish paving
• digging out remaining wisteria at front of house and widening the bed to put my Aloha rose in
• finishing building brick wall for waterbutt stand and raised path slabs
• stripping and painting the front door
• tidying and insulating the greenhouse
• working at the allotment
• attacking another garden border and getting it ready for spring
• make a start on replacing the fence at the side of the house

Decided to go for planty jobs as I'd really like to get all my Christmas present roses in the ground before the end of the month.  So, went out to the shed with the full intention of collecting up tools for the wisteria removal task.

But you know how it is.

Thought I'd just pot on my hydrangea cutting first... which took me to the greenhouse.  Then passed the other two roses awaiting homes and pondered where to put those....then decided to weed a patch of border to let my cowslips breathe... then decided to move them to make a place for my Savoy Hotel rose and put it in...then planted Queen of Sweden rose in the main border.... then decided that today was actually the day to redesign the lawn.

Ignore the bit that looks like it's missing - when I took this, I hadn't yet got round to moving the turf from my edging activities, and it's just a heap waiting to be shifted.  Neither had I finished the edging entirely!

Ever since I made the border, there's always been an annoying narrow bit of grass behind the apple tree which is impossible to mow (whose stupid design was that then?) and the curved lawn 'path' which leads to the main lawn area is wider the the mower and generally annoying - especially the humped bit where it abuts an old cherry tree stump. Have you ever tried to use a manual vintage qualcast at a 45 degree angle? It involves lots of swearing and lumps of missing turf, put it that way.  The ultimate plan is to make a slab and scree path to replace the grassy one, so that I don't have to mow it at all, but not quite sure when that project will get done, so the grass can remain for now.

So..... out with the hosepipe to demarcate a new curvy border edge and more planting space. Cue evil cackle. Hahahahaha.  It isn't really eating into the large lawn area so won't shrink the playing space too much.  Hosepipes are brilliant for drawing with when you're trying to visualise a curvy lawn shape as you can just keep moving them around until you're happy with the general line of things.

I'm now going to zoom back outside into the sunshine to crack on with my half moon edger to get that grass gone!  Bigger borders for a happier gardener....  Not bad considering the whole damn thing was wall to wall lawn when we moved here.  Needless to say, I'm not a turf queen - I'd have the lot out and turned over to cultivation left to my own devices!

But this is my idea of gardening - live with your patch, and gradually chip away at it to get it to where the fancy takes you.  Mine evolves into more planting space with each passing year.  Suits me fine.

October jobs

Time to plan ahead for next year and maximising cutting garden space. So.... the short-lived beauty of my rambling rose does not make it worth the vast (and lethally thorny) space it takes up.  It is on my list of things to axe but not until I have found the best spike-proof gloves.

Am also going to cull the large patches of hardy geraniums, but at least now I have control of the school garden, I can donate them to the bare borders there and get divisions of them in future, should I want them back.  The same goes for the ferns which have got HUGE and for the lysimachia  which has outspread its welcome.

Anemone corms are soaking on my worktop ready for planting tomorrow, and Parkers bulb catalogue is awaiting my next decisive moment...  Looking forward to a better growing year next year - weather permitting.