autumn agendas

What flowers could sum up autumn colours better than heleniums? They are definitely on my top ten list this year. I have about six different varieties, starting in July with Sahin's early flowerer and now I'm in the full flush of Autumnale.  I've been quite good at remembering to cut them back so many of even young plants have had at least two full on flowerings already and there are masses more to come. I can hardly wait to see what they'll be like with more maturity next year - supra abundant I think, and that's definitely the way I like things.

You will have gathered that I love the abundance and variety of flowers, and the more varieties I can grow, the happier I am. I don't think I could ever be a specialist in anything, there are just too many things to enjoy! And that's why I get slightly disappointed with some of the other companies selling "English" flowers on line. Many of them are producing very pleasing floristry, but too often the variety is such a pale shadow of what it could be because they are buying in, and there is not a vast variety to buy in..... But I could go on for rather a long time about that and I'm aware that I'm a rubbish blogger because I start off meaning to do soundbites and within a few lines am threatening to write an essay!

As much as I love all the fabulous variety, I'm also really looking forward to more wintery arrangements, there's something so beautiful about berries and foliage and those few precious flowers that bloom in the winter months. I've started growing a number of different ivies as they are just so useful, and am thinking about growing a lot more - I think the rule with greenery is to be as generous as you can be, few things look sadder than a few wispy trails of foliage when a space begs for generosity. 

However one thing that does look sadder than a few orphan pieces of foliage is the state of our house at the moment. I say to myself it is so untidy because I have been so busy I just haven't had time to sort it out..... And the storage barn is little better, I send out jugs and vases and candle sticks and containers of one sort or another, and when I get them back I seem to find it almost pathologically impossible to put them back in the same place. Next time it rains I may get down to it - but first there will of course be the tunnel to muck out and replant, the bulbs to order, research to discover, plants to drool over, seed catalogues to rake through, even accounts to do...