Walking onto the allotments this afternoon the air was chill but it was gloriously sunny.

 It's that time of year. The leaves are falling, the days are getting shorter, the weather is damp and chilly... winter is coming. If I had a fire I'd put another log on it.

 The miniature landscapes of terrariums and bonsai don't really interest me to be honest. The other day however I was sorting through some neglected pots on the patio. The community of tiny plants that have established themselves in this one do indeed evoke a world within a world.

 Tahoe wildflowers. Still sifting through the many wildflowers I photographed during my trip to Tahoe in July. These Asters grew all along a section of the trail through the Meiss Meadows.
 I'm calling them Asters but the hundreds of North American species of Aster bar one have been reclassified as different species (though they are still grouped as members of Asteraceae family). I don't know what these were when they were Asters and I don't know what they are now they're something else. So I'll stick with what is still their common name: Asters.

 The pods of Iris foetidissima are starting to pop now with clusters of bright orange seeds. Native to the UK, it's sometimes called the Stinking Iris or the Gladwyn Iris among other names. Its toughness makes it useful to the gardener; I planted it in a couple of areas of dry shade though it will cope with sun or shade, dry or damp conditions.
 The berry-like seeds gleam through winter, in fact are more eye catching than the pale flowers in summer.

 I was given several Foxgloves grown from seed by one of my neighbours. I've re-potted them into larger pots twice now as the root ball progressively increases in size. As this photo shows pot grown plants frequently become potbound (i.e. the roots form a dense fibrous mass shaped to the confines of the pot).
 It's worth potting on if this happens because the plant is using up all the nutrition it can find thereby restricting its growth. When the time comes to put a potbound specimen into the ground it's advisable to tease out the roots somewhat to encourage them to spread outwards in the surrounding earth. 

 There are still some beautiful blooms to be seen even though winter is approaching. I saw this magnificent Mahonia lomarifolia yesterday at the South London Botanical Institute. Winter flowers in an English garden are invariably a plant of distant origins as is the case here; China and Myanmar are the natural habitat of this species.
 Mahonia is much used by gardeners and the Mahonia x media hybrids are widely available. They look rather similar to the one above which is not surprising because they are a cultivated cross between M. lomarifolia and M. japonica. They're fine but the straight species is particularly striking and architectural and not often grown in the UK.