Seasonal diaries – Six pictures on a Saturday

As we move into the winter it's harder to find beautiful things in the garden. This week I'm focussing on feeding birds over the winter months, digging up dahlias, ordering seeds and eyeing veg for winter comfort food.

This week I take a visit to the greenhouse to show some plants that are providing late colour and winter interest - an explosion of Chrysanthemums, a glowing salvia and a sand box of tiny alpine delights.

Dull days need brightening with autumn colour and as we tip slowly towards winter, there are still plenty of flowers showing us their autumn best.

This week I set about building a rockery - set to be the stage for some rock star alpines. I also plant some new woodland plants and collect seeds from a magnolia.

This week I bought some ferns for my woodland garden. Evergreen or deciduous, frilly or flat leaved, acid green or moss-coloured I hadn't realised how diverse they are. Some named after feathers and other lace, here are my favourite six.

A busy week in the garden has seen the pond finished, a froggy staircase built, more parts of the woodland cleared, a mini stumpery started and some bonsai training.

It's autumn and friends are asking me what I am doing in the garden - am I putting it to bed for the winter?  If my garden is a theatre show then far from closing the curtain and packing the props away, autumn is all about rebuilding the stage and [...]

I've been making progress on this neglected area to create a new woodland garden. Here I describe how I've prepped the area and started to plant plants that will tolerate the shady woodland area.