At Wickes this week - £1.99 for 30 litres - and 4 for the price of 3. Let's get seed & bulb planting then...

Anyone got any idea what the shape in the brickwork might be? A bat perhaps?

Looks like Steve has finished the cold frame - just in time to over-winter some of our plants now that it's getting colder. What a great structure. Thanks to Travis Perkins for the woodwork, the bowls pavilion for the panels - and Steve for the design and build.

Clearing the perennial beds we found a hibernating hedgehog on Tuesday - so moved it to the box in the Walled Garden. Normally at this time of year the grass cutting tractor goes over the perennial beds to clear them - so the hedgehog has had a lucky escape. If anyone wants to know anything and everything about hedgehogs .....

It might look like an old bit of furniture - ok, it was an old bit of furniture - but now it is a hedgehog house. There was evidence of a hedgehog in the shrubs that we have been clearing in preparation for replanting, so we have made a new abode for any HH that cares to over-winter.

Jobs-for-the-week on last Tuesday morning included shifting the last of the gravel to top up the grasses bed. It was also used to prepare the new rockery-after planting bulbs and before planting alpines. We may have to work some of the gravel in a bit though?

Continuing with the Gardeners' World theme - all of the dahlia tubers have been taken up, variety names have all been checked and they will go into storage in the greenhouses. If anyone wants to pass on any information about dividing them - then please feel free. The dahlia plants/stalks have been shredded for compost and - top tip from last year - the name tags (wired onto the plants to stop the blackbirds and magpies taking them) have all survived.

Ever wanted to seem knowledgeable about plants? Print this off, don't let your friends see you looking at it, stand in front of the herbaceous borders in the Walled Garden - and reel those plant names off. :-) (Thanks to Miranda for the plan).

It was a pleasure to hold a joint event. Until next year then......

Community Soup on 1st October in Hillsborough Park Walled Garden - interesting eh?

Are these the dahlias? If your check in time is right you must have got locked in the garden? Gates open again at 8.30a.m. :-)