Getting ready for winter

I've started to put in a few bedding plants ready for the dull, drab days of winter when there is usually very little in the way of colour in the garden. The cyclamen are always a pleasure to see and this old sink is at the top of the garden so when I look out of the kitchen window, I can see it with the bright shades of pink which become almost luminous when the sun shines on it.

Pansies always fascinate me because some of them appear to have faces and others look as though they have a dark butterfly sitting in the middle. I chose these with their yellow bottoms and blue tops because they looked so different and will brighten any dull winter day. I have another pot with some delicate apricot violas which are smaller versions of the pansy but flower as profusely.

There are still a few plants flowering which I haven't cut back because they are still going strong. The Michaelmas daisy or aster has plenty of flowers still to come on it but although it has a support frame, I find it still gets flattened every time we have wind and rain. The gaura in front of it has done exceptionally well, I think it's called claret, but it has flowered continuously all through the summer. The flowers on their long slender stems always remind me of little butterflies especially if there is a breeze which makes the stems sway around.

There are a couple of other plants still flowering too, the perennial osteospermum and the astrantia and one of the really robust ones is the gaillardia (goblin), which will probably continue until the first frost.

Somewhere hidden in areas of the garden are crocuses and also hyacinths which hopefully will come up again next spring. I haven't got any other bulbs at the moment because I hope that one day I will be able to move and it doesn't seem worth going to the trouble of putting them in if I won't be able to see them and anjoy them.