Swanky swag

Now this is serious loot.   I had a fantastic day down at Andrew’s with the other member of the Ardeche garden society: Leslie.   So it was happiness all round.

Here they are inspecting the forest of Dahlias and rudbeckias in the cutting garden. We both caame away with seeds.   And had lunch in the sun on the terrace. What could be better?

Loot.   Leslie was re landscaping a client’s garden; and all the stachys had to go.   And where did it go? Into the boot of my car when we did the hand over at the end of the visit.

Lovely stachys. And so much. I don’t regret the hours and hours I have spent prizing the seeds out of the stalks in preparation for spring sewing.

Instead, I get to put hundreds (and there really are hundreds) of ready grown plants straight into the ground.

I haven’t quite worked out where they are all to go; so for the moment they are dotted all about the calabert garden for the winter while I ponder a more permanent plan.

An autumn visit to Andrew means one other thing; bulbs. The orders have come through and I am the proud possessor of almost 100o beauties.   300 narcissus Thalia, 200 Mt Tacoma tulips, species gladiolus, tulips galore – Purissima, West Point, Abu Hassan. Merry Go Round; plus Camassias, and alliums. Galore. Oh, plus 100 Paperwhite narcissus for forcing for Christmas.

I don’t have the time this week to get them all in the ground.   But I have managed to get in all the narcissus and the alliums in. And then hobbled indoors to recover.

I love bulbs; it’s all full of hope and promise and they can get on with their growing without any fussing abut watering or protecting.   And up they come. Wonderful.

I ran into Jean Daniel during my bulb planting and reminded him that the quinces were ripe and ready for picking. Neither of us seem to have the leisure time to get on with making our annual delights: quince paste and pickles.

But we got on with harvesting (playful on a steep slope when you have to hang onto trees to get the fruit down) and then boxed them up and both stuffed them in our respective fridges for Ron. Later On.