I have been turning out the compost bins.  That which is ready to go is being placed onto the garden as I work my way around each of the beds in turn.  As quickly as I have been taking the leaf bind to pieces and using the now ready material the under gardener has been filling it up again!  The colours in the garden are still quite spectacular and with the very good weather we have been having progress has been quite good.  I cannot escape the feeling however that any time now we are going to wake up and find it has turned VERY cold and then reality will really kick in.

I am feeling very pleased with myself and very tired.  Having spent a short holiday with family in Spain I have come back rearing to go and put the garden "to bed" for the winter.  First off that means clearing out, cleaning everything and then re-assembling the whole greenhouse.  It is not my favourite job by a long way but now it is done I am feeling pleased.  I always find a ruthless streak at this time of year and some plants that I might have been nursing through the past few months are suddenly beyond the pale and are thrown onto the compost to make way for more encouraging prospects.  I have been teasing Phlomis seedlings out of the gravel in the past few weeks and have potted them up and they are doing very well.  I have collect seeds from this plant to try sowing them in the conventional way next spring.  I must say that the gravel garden is the most enormous source of plants that have self set themselves, I sometimes wonder why I bother with the more conventional methods.