GINA PARKINSON is looking forward to an Indian summer.

THE nip in the air tells us that summer is drawing to a close and autumn is getting ready make its entrance.

Time seems to have flown and the disappointing August we had meant little time could be spent outside enjoying the results of spring labour.

Forecasters are anticipating a good September so maybe we will have another month or so before the autumn clear up begins.

Despite the dull weather, or perhaps because of it, our garden has never been so full at this time of year.

The plants are lush and still fresh, with late-summer perennials and grasses coming to the fore as earlier plants die back. Pots and containers still look good with pelagoniums continuing to produce flowers and impatiens looking as if they could go on all year which, in a warmer climate, they probably would.

Here, however, they are unlikely to survive the frosts although both impatiens and pelagoniums can be kept for next year in a heated greenhouse or brought indoors and used as house plants.

A few nasturtiums have appeared in our garden again this year although I haven't purposely planted seed for several years.

In a sunny bed, an orange-flowered variegated variety climbs through a spring flowering clematis alpina while, in a large pot, a golden-yellow flowered plain-leafed type has crept up the wall and along wires meant for the evergreen clematis armandii.

This second nasturtium was visited by cabbage-white butterflies at the beginning of August and within a short while was covered in a mass of caterpillars feeding on the foliage.

It looked sorry for itself for a while but we let the caterpillars have their fill and the plant has recovered, producing several new stems that fill a large section of the wall.

Updated: 08:45 Saturday, September 04, 2004