A winter of content - red and white cyclamen pic

Planting winter colour outside is a great way to cheer up the dark season, says Peter Dowdall. 

It’s only this week that I have eventually come to terms with the fact that summer is over. It went on for so long this year — six months of good weather — that I had started to partake in that most dangerous of Irish pursuits — expecting it to remain fine.

However, the Jazz Weekend and Halloween are now behind us and the weather is once more wet and wild. Though it has remained remarkably mild. This is why it is only now that I have consigned the last of my summer flowering patio plants to the compost bin.