This weekend is the end of British Summer Time. The clocks go back on Sunday morning and the evenings will start to draw in. I hate this time of year. November and December are the two months I would love to be anywhere but here. I loathe the rain, the greyness, the dampness, the darkness. I hate the fact that I can’t get out into my garden to potter around, that there is little colour and even Gardeners World has finished for the season! What is a girl to do?

Saying that, this week has been a pleasant mix of several sunny days and even warm days, though very chilly evenings. Thank goodness for the wood burning stove! I managed to get the rest of my tulips planted, the conservatory painted inside, cleaned and tidied and all my tender plants have been moved into their winter retreat. Just in time as on Friday afternoon gale force winds and heavy rain arrived and are set to stay until this afternoon.

I did manage a quick squizz around the garden to find six for this Saturday.

1. I have a couple of shallow pots of pink Impatiens that I bought months ago from one of the supermarkets and they have been flowering continually ever since. The best £4 I have spent on plants I think.
   
2. The climber – Celastrus orbiculatus – or bittersweet vine is, I discovered, a male and therefore to get the pretty yellow fruits which may split to show scarlet seeds that I wanted I also need a female. It is a strong-growing deciduous climber with rounded leaves, colouring butter-yellow in autumn, and inconspicuous greenish flowers. A shame the nursery I bought it from didn’t think to inform me that this one would not produce the berries.
   
3. Next is my lovely glazed pot which was a wedding present sixteen years ago and a wonderful reminder of the lovely man who bought it for us (who sadly is no longer with us) and currently contains two Heuchera. H.’Marmalade’ and a plum coloured one. There are tulips in this pot that have come back for three years now. I wonder if they’ll return in the spring? This pot has been hiding under the sprawling Fatsia japonica all summer and the Heuchera are looking the best they have for a while now.
   
4. My Osteospermum ‘Tresco Purple‘ is still flowering though the white and pink ones have stopped. This is supposedly hardy though the snow last year wiped an earlier specimen out. Fingers crossed we don’t have another very cold winter. Though I find it is the wet that kills off a lot of my plants. And it has certainly been wet this month!
   
5. In the new border that I created a couple of weeks ago I spotted dozens of these rather weird fungi. They are very rubbery looking and smell extremely ‘earthy’. Possibly Jelly Disc fungi (Neobulgaria pura)? Anyone able to ID them?
   
6. And finally I noticed my little red patio rose is still in flower. During the summer this rose was munched on by leaf-cutter bees and it stopped flowering. Now it has several buds and looking very good. I might treat it to a new and larger container next spring with some fresh compost!
   

All from me for this week. I’ll be looking for dry spells to mow the lawn and cut down the jasmine and irises then my work in the garden is done until late winter. I shall enjoy the dramatic sunsets (header) we occasionally get at this time of year and be reading through my gardening books for inspiration for next year. Oh, and planning a few holidays!

As always, if you want a peek over other people’s garden walls then please pop over to our host, the lovely Jon, AKA ‘The Propagator’ where you find links to many more wonderful garden enthusiasts from all over the world.

See here for the participant’s guide.

Six on Saturday