Gardening opportunities diminishing...

Now that our clocks have gone back the opportunities for gardening are considerably reduced. It gets dark at about five-o-clock, so unless I get up at the crack of dawn I won't see my garden much except at weekends.

One job I plan to do next weekend is to chop down the Asparagus ferns, which are finally looking quite yellow. They are not going to do any more good to the plants now, and they need to come down. If I leave them in place they will get blown about by Winter gales, which may disturb the roots of the plants.

Asparagus fern definitely looking yellow

 

Yep, no doubt about it!

Another job to do is plant these Tulip bulbs:

Jane won these for me in a competition. It is the Sarah Raven Perfect for Pots collection. There are 15 bulbs, 5 each of "Jan Reus", "Flaming Spring Green" and "Ronaldo". The "Flaming Spring Green" is aptly named. It has white petals streaked with red and green. It should be very impressive.

I'm not normally a fan of Tulips, because I have this perception that they are always going to be battered about by strong winds and only look good en masse. Yes, I know it may be completely baseless, but... Anyway, "Don't look the gift horse in the mouth" they say, so I shall give these ones a fair trial.

Actually I have already planted some Tulips.  Last year I grew some "Soleil d'Or" Daffodils in a wide shallow blue-glazed pot

The yellow daffs and the blue pot were a great colour combination, but I felt that the daffs were too tall for the pot.

This time I have gone for some short (6") red Tulips. They are multi-headed ones called "Dwarf Praestans". I think they will look much better in the blue pot.