When I was a few years old I was toddling through Ransoms Recreation Ground with my father. I saw a man with a fork on the adjoining allotments and I asked my father what he was doing. "He's digging his allotment" he replied. Today there was another man digging on those same allotments- it was me.

 Every autumn I plant a few more bulbs of Erythronium Pagoda in the shady 'woodland' area of my back garden in London. They're accumulating nicely, forming a gentle drift. The flowering is brief but beautiful. 

 

 A shapely example of one of my favourite shrubs Japanese Quince. This looks like the cultivar Chaenomeles x superba 'Crimson and Gold'. Seen here as standalone specimen but a good hedging plant as well. The fruits are sometimes used to make jams and jellies. 

 Good thing about plants- if they aren't growing where you want them you can dig them up in spring or autumn and plant them where you do. This clump of Stinking Iris (Iris foetidissima) has been developing over the past few years among some not very productive Raspberry canes on the allotment. 

 I used to mulch the patch with pine needles and Stinking Iris grows under the Corsican Pine I gathered them from. No doubt some berries arrived in the mulch. By now the clump was large enough to divide into four sturdy specimens when I took it home.

 The dry valleys of the Pegsdon Hills.

 

 A glimpse of the English countryside from a London-bound train.

 Shipton Bulbs dispatch bare root plants in spring and autumn. Bulbs go out in autumn with a selection 'in the green' in spring. This time round I ordered 5 of: Greater Stitchwort, Purple Loosestrife, Dames Violet, Solomon's Seal and a couple of Stinking Iris. All very hardy, not long out of the ground and ready to go back in.

 Sometimes called Lords-and-Ladies or Cuckoo Pint our native Arum maculatum is actually a bulbous plant. Shipton sell it in the autumn but last week I had to clear quite a few from a border we are rejuvenating at the music school. Accordingly I forked them out 'in the green' so to speak and replanted them in my garden.

 I think the foliage will wilt and die back with that kind of treatment but as long as the bulb survives they may recover next year.