AnticipAting frost

It’s time to start clearing out the last peppers from the greenhouse, give it a wash down and begin the gathering-in of my tenders. Last year, on 31 October, the garden was still happily in golden autumn, with dahlias, salvias etcetera all flowering away. On 4 November, frost hit, and the show was emphatically over. Some borderline tenders will take a glancing frost a couple of times, although I’m not going to test my new golden barrel cactus; that’s going into the conservatory. Some agaves stay out, tucked into the lee of the house wall. Others go into the unheated greenhouse. The fuchsias will get nipped soon. I’ll dig up a couple before any frost and put them in the unheated greenhouse to extend the display. It seems a shame not to enjoy the flowers a little longer. The pelargoniums I want to keep will be taken out of the summer display pots, potted up in new compost and put into the conservatory. The outdoor pots will then be completely emptied for bulb planting in November.

Agaves and fuchsias are moved into the greenhouse.

Kari-Astri Davies started gardening in her twenties with pots of roses, geraniums and sweet peas on a parapet five storeys up in central London. She’s now on her fifth garden, this time in the Wiltshire countryside. Inspiration includes her plant-mad...