Six on Saturday - 5 October 2024

It is getting harder to find lovely clumps of pretty flowers to talk about, and I can feel the boss will have to be a little lenient with me.  The great gardener is Jim, and he is such a generous host so it is always a delight to see what he, and our SOSs are talking about each week. I loved how he describes himself this week '"as cheerleader for the Six on Saturday memettes". You too can become memettes, it is quite uncompetitive but we often have colourful photographs to draw attention.

Although the week has ended on a drier sunnier note, this magical sunrise potent of Red Sky in the morning Shepherd's warning was followed by very wet and winder weather during the earlier part of the week.  I took this through the glass of the conservatory a view of the garden, but I don't know if it counts as one of the SOS.

Colourful sunrise in the garden

Now to ones that I think count as six!

1. I acquired Scilla hughii earlier this year and have since learnt it has been renamed Oncostema hughii.  I noticed it had just come into growth again and decided to place it in the gravel garden. I think it will look good there.  

This is the picture I used to sketch and keep a record of this. 

Oncostema hughii in the gravel garden

I keep a spreadsheet of the plants I acquire, I write a blog showing many of the plants, and have tried to make a map of where some of the snowdrops are, and labels in the ground get lost. I enjoy writing notes, and woke last Sunday morning with an idea to help remind me of what plants are where in the garden, it wasn't long before I got sketching, in that quiet time after lunch, whilst Mr S clears up the kitchen and washes up.  This is my first entry.  

The colours are not quite right, but this is not art, it simply a nice way of observing the garden and noting the names of plants in a certain section and which plants are up on in flower at that particular time.  I hope to keep this up , and getting better at drawing and keep a visual record on paper of new plantings or the look of a section. 

2. The Crassula perforata which I bought from The Newt in 2022, is looking well formed and gaining some bulk, and is almost as good as the one was in their glass house.  This one will be moving to the conservatory here soon. Next year it will get an even bigger pot.

Crassula perforata

3. One of my favourite little plants in the gravel garden and also recently in pots is Phlox bifida 'Ralph Haywood'.  After flowering earlier this year I took several cuttings, which all rooted really well, and now I have placed them in two half pans, and this one is destined for the large square garden table to add interest in the spring.

4. I love the way the little Violas seeds itself no doubt aided by ants. They are either very easy to grow or the garden is well suited to them, probably a bit of both.

5. When we have a couple of days of dry weather, then the roses shine out as does 'Grace', but the blooms don't seem to last very long. Do blooms go over faster in the autumn than during early summer? Having consulted with my friend Hilary who came over twice this week, my roses are in need of a good dose of manure to perk them up, so I promise to follow a much better regime next year.

6. It is always nice to see gardening friends twice in a week, and share garden thoughts and cake.  As we went round the garden the first time, I pointed out that I was feeling cheery as I had finally written labels for all the auriculas that I had split and repotted.  As I had potted them up I set up little groups of the same name around the garden to help me identify the plants. The ones in clay pots are for me, the others were to share with friends. Hillary showed interest in them, and as she is yet to get into this group and has a very large and lovely garden and plenty of room on walls for an auricula stage, I was delighted to give her a good selection.

The second time Hillary came was to bring me a large clump of Nerine bowdenii Wellsii. On the first visit I showed her the empty space by the wall in the front garden where I had only just finished digging out the Ceonothus, and she suggested I try some Nerines as the area is predominately planted with Mediterranean plants. 

After feeling a little in the doldrums, my gardening mojo is starting to return, thank goodness.