I've taken your recommendation FW and am due to receive a rooted pad of Optunia Humifosa in the post today. I'll probably overwinter her under glass in the first year and then tentatively move out once established, keeping a spare pad or two under cover as an insurance policy.

Eryngium are a lovely plant; I purchased some seeds of E Zabelii 'Big Blue' last year but have yet to sow them as i'm not sure where i'm going to put them. I opted to grow another bee magnet, Echinops, in lieu as its better suited to our borders and has done well so far.

A little bed re-arranging this winter and i'm sure i can create an area suited for E Zabelii.  

I suppose this ties in the dry summer but I've noticed a sharp decline in hanging baskets this year around here. They must be a nightmare to keep watered, so I assume many people have forgone them this year. The ones I've noticed often look drought ridden or the owners have just given up on them. 

Things that have done well in my garden where I've been able to water them are borage when at peak, a sea of blue and buzzing with bees. I've now cleared them out bar one for seed. Cannas look great but need a lot of water. My tree fern in a shady corner looks fantastic. The Hedychium sp's look incredible and I hope will flower in due course. Excellent for the tropical style garden. My mums olive in a container thrives outside the office door and is covered in fruit, though I won't use them. Too much work for little return and certainly no need for a press. The Zantedeschia in pots give a steamy tropical feel but I'll move them out of the 'tropical' garden. Foliage too overpowering perhaps.

Scented pelargoniums have been great this year. Far more interesting than the zonal ones with bright flowers. The delicious night scented stock, great at night, but straggly in daylight needs more thought as where to place them. Silky Lambs Ears look so Mediterranean and the flowers which last for weeks attract bumblebees by the dozen.

And lastly my fig in a large pot that's covered in figs soon to ripen I hope. Better than in the ground but it doesn't have half have a drink problem. A can every day, early and late. The dark green leaves add a tropical vibe too next to the raised pond and its fish which is my favourite spot to sit next too with a coffee, tea (iced?), chilled beer or cider. Depending on the hour of the day.

My water bill will reach record highs this year but it's worth it I feel. Nurturing one's soul is so important, at least for me. You can do that with a garden. Next year will be better of course.

Great post NMA, i can almost imagine i'm there in your garden and it sounds awesome.

Not much time today but i'll write a summary of how my plot has been getting on as there were a few big changes implemented earlier in the year.

I will add that my water bill has also reached record highs - its gone from £60 pcm to £120pcm!!!...This has been expected on account of a perfect storm of new tree's, a new kid and extreme drought since March.   

I'm in box moth trapping mode this autumn. The trap gets about three or four a night so I've ordered another trap to put in the front garden. Plus the biological control for the caterpillars.  Should arrive tomorrow. I've been alternating sites. It's either that or grubbing all the box plants out. I'm loathe to do that. I have fond childhood memories of Box fragrance. Not for everyone I know.

https://ebts.org/box-moth-and-caterpillar/ 

Apart from that the grass has fully recovered, figs ripening and the rain falls this afternoon. Not heavy, just right.

So I've just received the mother of all weapons, a staccato watering device. I've used ptfe tape to seal the threads, hammered into the ground a strong metal spike and tied in the supplied plastic spike with cable ties because it will be stronger. All tested and operational. 

From the videos I've watched it seems a failsafe defence device.

Edit. This morning no fresh latrine excavations and deposits. A Winner!

A few of the shrubs we have are also getting their autumn colours now. One thing I hadn't properly realised until this year is how beautiful the autumn leaves on blueberry bushes are. Mine is currently a bright fiery crimson.

Recipe: collect up a bagful of plump sweet chestnuts, boil for 25-30 minutes, allow to cool (done before today). Cut open e.g. with a pair of poultry shears, scoop out the insides with a small teaspoon and put in bags in the freezer. It's then ready for use as a crumble topping, and gluten-free if that's important to you.

As far as I’m concerned, this has to go down as one of the best gardening seasons we’ve had. Fruit and vegetables were abundant — which isn’t usually the case with things like apricots, peaches, or grapes. This was all thanks to a mild spring during the fruit flowering and formation period, and the fact that we haven’t had any frosts yet in my part of the UK. It’s even allowed me to keep ripening tomatoes and figs.

One thing I might try to do just before the first frost  which I don’t expect for another week or so is take cuttings from the tomatoes and root them in pots. I’ll carefully manage them over the winter, then plant them out in the greenhouse at the end of February or start of March to give them a good head start. Objective is to try an pick first tomatoes end of June/start of July in greenhouse. May be too ambitious but worth a  try, perhaps.

It's important from a well being angle to grow indoor stuff like paperwhites for Christmas, hyacinths and so on. Outdoors of course nothing really stops growing if you look and plan ahead. Snowdrops are great when they show in January. Hellebores I'm getting into and whatever the weather, flower beautifully. Winter jasmine with its bright yellow flowers and the witch hazels. I found tropical gardening in a region with a marked dry and wet season sometimes boring. Colours surprising minimal unless you like greens and browns. But I liked a red Amaryllis which flowered towards the end of the dry season and I can grow these here for Winter flowering. They called them red daffodils there. 

Good if you have a garden based on well-established perennials but you could forget bedding plants and seasonal veg here unless you were able to go out and water, water, water.

I’m fortunate to have bought a house with a garden that borders the allotments and I even have a gate leading directly from my garden into my plots. It was the main selling point of the house and the reason I wouldn’t consider moving elsewhere.

My comment was mainly about fruit and vegetable production. Obviously, some would have struggled, particularly water-sensitive plants like lettuce, which I don’t grow anyway. They need constant protection from pigeons and slugs.

Interesting, I wasn't aware of fully grown plants needing at least a certain period of chilling hours. I always thought that it was just seeds that needed the stratification period in order to germinate properly. Usually it's a period of eight weeks in order to break the dormancy.

Same principle, I think. There are dormant fruit buds which may or may not develop.

These look nice though, I'm looking forward to seeing these: https://www.farmergracy.co.uk/products/tecophilaea-cyanocrocus-bulbs-uk?variant=55901848371584&country=GB¤cy=GBP&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=17426900561&gclid=Cj0KCQiA5uDIBhDAARIsAOxj0CEWGvEsUhXJqEWdRC8b7EXVyibo3XinJkt2613SazFYaP1lJbxDYeYaAlwrEALw_wcB 

I have just harvested some cape gooseberries and have been doing so for the last several weeks. The one planted in a giant pot in the greenhouse has produced a couple of punnets every week for the past couple of months, and I intend to heat the greenhouse to try to preserve the plant for as long as possible.

Highly recommended growing.

Paperwhites

https://ukwct.org.uk/weather/garden.jpg 

For the last two nights my electric heater was blasting all night in the greenhouse and kept the temperature at +11°C. It wasn’t even turned up fully. This saved my lovely cape gooseberry plant, which still have tons of unripe fruit, and I continue to harvest @ 30 gooseberries per week. This week will be less due to the cold and the lack of natural warmth and sunshine, although today the inside temperature still peaked at 26.1°C.

The tomato plants are also alive. I planted them from cuttings back in September; they have tiny fruit but are very leggy. The huge space taken up by the cape gooseberry has added extra shade, which hasn’t helped. The strawberries aren’t responding to the artificial warmth or the daytime peaks as they’re probably waiting for the days to start getting longer.

Make a snowball with the leaves in it, following the example of the sculptor Andy Goldsworthy who now lives in Scotland?

https://andy-goldsworthy.weebly.com/midsummer-snow-balls.html 

The earthworms will soon take care of them!

This link says: "Yucca plants typically flower in the spring or summer, but some varieties may bloom in the fall or winter. The exact time of year that a yucca plant flowers depends on the species and the growing conditions." but the species given in the link below don't indicate winter flowing spp. Anyone know which?

How Often Do Yucca Plants Flower? (The Ultimate Guide)

https://plant4harvest.com/how-often-do-yucca-plants-flower/ 

I'm not an expert Roger.  But as soon as I opened the link and saw something about pruning Banana Trees sic I thought Ho hum is he a reliable source? There was a song that mentioned Pineapple Trees ... You were expecting that reaction though I guess.

A quick delve into AI produces this.

Most yucca plants do not die after flowering; they are perennial (polycarpic) and can bloom multiple times over many years. The main exceptions are a few monocarpic species, such as the chaparral yucca Yucca whipplei, where the main plant will die after a single, often spectacular, "death bloom".

The RHS suggests this.

https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/323863/hesperoyucca-whipplei/details 

There is one 'normal' variety in my garden that flowers most summers in June. Bees love the flowers. It's in a place where the sun won't shine until mid February but then I'm not in a frost pocket and minus 6C is notably cold.