An old photo circa 2019 of a good haul of plants purchased at the Plant Fairs Roadshow when it made its annual visit to my neighbourhood. So I was sorry to hear of the retirement of Colin and Cindy Moat who ran Pineview Plants for 25 years and were a mainstay of the Roadshow. Originally featuring nurseries from the counties south of London the 'tour' has steadily increased its range both in the participants and the venues.

 I moved to New Cross Gate back in 2010. I started out as a gardener and landscape gardener but by then I was working mainly in the art world after a stint at art school. The flat has quite a sizeable garden which had become overgrown so I thought I'd tidy it up a bit. Then I thought I'd do a bit of planting. I quickly became a plantaholic, more so than when I was working in the 'trade' in fact.

 I soon became frustrated by the limited choice in garden centres. I began to order from admirable institutions like the Beth Chatto nursery and I started going to plant sales at places like the RHS halls in Victoria. Therefore I was delighted when I discovered that something called the Plant Fairs Roadshow was coming to the community centre at the top of the road. That was about a decade ago and over the years I've also caught up with it at various other locations in and around London. I've always been impressed by the dedication of these niche nurseries and the quality (and good value) of the plants. Some have been doing great work for a long time; equally encouraging is the emergence of new growers.

 Pineview Plants will be missed but as they say in showbiz: always leave 'em wanting more...

 Pruning Lavender. Left alone Lavender becomes voluminous and leggy which might be fine if that suits. Alternatively it can be shaped with an annual trim for a more formal look e.g. when used in a Lavender hedge. 

 The important thing to bear in mind is that Lavender becomes increasingly woody over time. It doesn't grow back from the wood so only cut the uppermost (i.e. green) section section of each stem. As long as the cut is above the woody part of the stem the green will re-grow.

 Traditionally the time to prune Lavender is late summer or early autumn though some say spring is ok. Perhaps now is a bit late for me to be pruning but then again it's been a mild autumn with both sun and rain to extend the growing season. Sometimes you have to do things when you can though it's important to work with rather than against seasonality.

 NB the standard advice about pruning the green and not the wood is not quite as hard and fast as it used to be. Some gardeners note no adverse effect when they cut into woody stems as long as the cut is made above shoots of growth. Even so I think Lavender is one for a light trim rather than a hard prune. 

 As mentioned a few days ago I mulched the Rhubarb patch by chopping and dropping the Comfrey growing there. Today I added a barrowload of wood chip and a sack of pine needles raking them into the layer of leaves. Keeping it local I shredded some branches lying around after the tree overhead was pollarded by the council. The pine needles I swept up from a big Scots Pine round the corner.

 Adding organic matter builds soil humus. "Well rotted" is the mantra for compost, particularly something potent like horse manure which shouldn't be used fresh. Using greens and browns as a mulch is fine, shredding when that helps. After all what is the forest floor but an accumulation of "green waste"? Creepy crawlies, bacteria, microbes and fungi rapidly go to work digesting all that goodness and returning it to the soil.  

 Ivy (Hedera helix) is in bloom at the moment, one of our most prolific wildflowers and the last big hit of pollen and nectar for insects. Ivy feeds the full spectrum of pollinators: honey bees and bumblebees, wasps, flies, moths, butterflies et al.

  Yesterday I noticed a large Holly tree with masses of Ivy clambering through it. The whole tree was swarming with wasps, so many there was an audible buzzing noise. 

 Unintentional propagation. White Comfrey (Symphytum orientale) has self-seeded from the raspberry patch to the adjacent bed. In fact it arrived among the raspberries after self-seeding from the 'wild' area at the back of the allotment. There's at least a dozen new plants here so I'll tease them out and replant them in the garden. The best things in life are free...

 Chop and drop. I've written before about the virtues of making 'Comfey tea' to use as a fertiliser. That stinky brew is made by steeping the leaves of Comfrey in water for several weeks. [see entry dated 26th. August 2022] 

 An even simpler approach is to cut the leaves off and use them as a mulch, best done at a damp time of year so they break down quickly. There are several clumps on the Rhubarb batch; I gave them the chop and let them drop right there.

 The thinking is that Comfrey is a 'dynamic accumulator' of NPK- nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium. All Symphytum species can be used to for this purpose but S. x uplandicum - sometimes called Russian Comfrey- is the leafiest. Conveniently there is plenty of it growing on and around the allotment. 

 An annual event of this diary to post a photo of the Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) turning fiery red on the side of the ancestral home. Native to eastern and central North America where 'the fall' is ablaze with colour.

 As I have probably mentioned before I have a vivid memory of flying into JFK in autumn. Our plane was put into a holding pattern circling over New England for about twenty minutes because Air Force One was due to land. I forget which President it was but I do recall gazing down on the incandescent wooded landscape.