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We have a phone-in this week so it鈥檚 a case of wait and see what comes over the airwaves as Northern Ireland鈥檚 gardeners get in touch.

Brendan Little and Averil Milliken are the gardening experts in the Studio 8 hot seats this week and at three minutes past nine they鈥檒l be poised and ready to answer all- comers. Whether it鈥檚 by phone, by text or by letter (sometimes with handy photograph or a bit of ailing plant for added reference) it鈥檚 always great to hear from local gardeners and to be able to share ideas, knowledge, suggestions and remedies. Our last phone-in featured questions about Allium, Clematis, Gardenia, Magnolia, potatoes and suggestions for vegetables to grow now and you can check out the answers by going to the Radio Ulster homepage and following the links to the Gardeners' Corner Podcast. An amazing 3,000 of you do just that every week, for which we are very grateful.

I don鈥檛 know about you, but I feel as if autumn is just a whisker away and so in the midst of all the tidying up and re-configuring which needs to be done in my own garden, I鈥檝e acquired a pretty little posse of brand new plants just to give me some creative impetus and to keep everything in the early autumn garden looking rosy for a bit longer. Among them is a daisy-filled hanging basket planted up with Mexican Fleabane or Erigeron Karvinskianus, which according to Ann Fitzsimons of the Uncommon Garden Company, should leap back into loveliness again next summer if I give it a short back and sides when flowering is over, a little shelter over winter and a feed in spring.

The other plants in the posse are positively spring-like in colour as well, all soft pinks, pale lavender and silvery greens and they are, just in case you were wondering, Laurentia Axillus 鈥淏lue Stars鈥� with it鈥檚 star shaped heather-bell blue flowers and fine foliage. It is a half hardy perennial best treated as a half hardy annual. It鈥檚 easy to grow from seed and will flower away all summer and on into early autumn. With it, is Verbena Rigida 鈥淧olaris鈥� another tender perennial normally grown as an annual. Smaller in stature than Verbena Bonariensis and with clusters of tiny powder-puff pink flowers, it should over-winter happily enough in sheltered conditions. And finally Pennisetum Villosum 鈥淲hite Ladies鈥� a delicate dancing grass, very pretty and slightly tender so resist the temptation to cut back in autumn, just leave the dying foliage in place to protect the crown of the plants from the worst of the winter weather, when it comes. For the moment though I鈥檓 quite looking forward to those lovely autumn days when the air is fresh and the skies are clear and the garden.