Planning, planning, planning

As the summer ends and we head into autumn my mind goes into overdrive. I look around the garden, enjoy the autumn flowering plants and grasses I never know whether to start cutting back or leave the seedheads for the wildlife and the bushy growth of the perennials for ground cover (just for a while longer).

I often get questions on my web site and FB page, sometimes about individual plants and their needs, but more often than not about how and when I go about propagating and cutting back. I try to follow the lunar cycle wherever practical as a basis for timing. At the moment we're in the cycle of the moon that is dry and barren. It is not a good time for sowing anything in the garden but an ideal time for weeding, building your compost heap, with all of your garden rubbish, and harvesting the spoils of your hard work in the potager (or veggie plot to me).

So with this in mind and it being too hot still, in September?, to garden with any real effort I have started to plan for the winter. We still have a lot to look forward to in the garden as autumn progresses but I'm now thinking 'spring'. This year we were so lucky to see the garden waking up in January (in my book that is winter) with various plants strutting their stuff. my favourites, I think, are the crocus flowers so I've just taken delivery of my next batches.

What am I going to do with them? My plan is to chuck them down in patches on the grass, mainly around the base of trees so that next spring I will have plenty of scattered colour throughout the garden. It's a good plan don't you think?

Crocus bulbs are self caring, they don't need any special treatment and once they're in the ground they will reward you with years of pleasure. They are very hardy so will thrive well here. They are quite small bulbs so I'll have to be careful how far I throw them to make sure I get to actually plant them all. I'll prod a hole about 2 cm deep where each one lands, pop them in and refill. The grass won't need to be cut before we enjoy the flowers and they are so beneficial to the early insects too.

Anyone, anywhere can have crocus in their lives as they also grow well in containers. One word of caution - they are attractive to mice so if you don't have cats be careful where you put them.

For more information about lunar planting I have outlined the basics on my website http://www.penstemonsandherbs.com/The-Gardening-Lunar-Cycle(1172856).htm.

For more information about crocus bulbs I found this web site to be very good http://bulbi.nl/default/springbulbs/crocus.html and it also includes other bulbs - very tempting :)