It's bulb planting time again. Keith and I have spent a companionable hour or so, sitting in the basement out of the rain, cleaning and sorting last year's tulip bulbs.

You might remember that we grew three different shades of purple tulips last spring, in a bed in the vegetable plot where they provided cut flowers for the house and a bright display in a bit of the garden that's not used so early in the year.

They were such a success that we are going to repeat the process for next spring, using three shades of yellow and cream tulips - Sweetheart, Candela and Makassar.

Meanwhile the old bulbs are worth keeping, though they are unlikely to provide such a good display as they did in their first year.

I dug them up in late May and left them in boxes in the basement to dry out. Cleaned up, with the old stems and dry soil knocked off, we can now see that many of them have split, producing three or four smaller bulbs (too small to flower) rather than one flowering-size bulb. We've discarded the smallest bulbs and will plant the rest in the grass verge outside the garden, where they can flower (or not) after the daffodils.

Heading in the other direction are the cannas, which need protecting from frost and winter wet. Textbooks imply that they should be treated like dahlias, dried out and allowed to go dormant until spring. In practise I have found that it is quite difficult to wake up a dried-out canna, and for the last couple of years I have cut mine down and potted up the rhizomes. I line them up in the cold greenhouse, keeping the soil just moist until there are signs of growth in spring, when I bring them into the veranda to give them a kick-start. They can be planted back out once the last frosts have passed.

Still on a bulb-ish theme, we are delighted to have a plant of nodding ladies tresses, Spiranthes cernua Chadds Ford', in flower in the veranda. This charming orchid has a flower stem about a foot tall, with small white flowers arranged in a double spiral around an elegant, pale green stem.

It's a terrestrial orchid, native to eastern Canada and the USA. I'm not sure that it's completely hardy so I'm reluctant to plant it out in the garden. The label describes it as a vigorous clump former'; if it continues to do well in its pot, I might eventually split the tubers while the plant is dormant, potting some up for safe keeping indoors and planting the rest out into a woodland bed.

Jobs for this week: Rake fallen leaves from beneath roses and any other shrubs which have suffered from blackspot, mildew or other fungal diseases. Burn these leaves to prevent fungal spores overwintering.

Sow peas and broad beans under cloches or in small pots in a cold greenhouse for an early start next year.

When the lawn eventually stops growing, give it a final cut and put your mower to bed for the winter. Give the mower a really good clean down, sending it off for servicing if necessary.