Six things to note from my garden - Six on Saturday 14 June 2025

Mid June, and thankfully we have had some rain, but also plenty of sunshine.  Since it is Saturday, now is the time to post six things from my garden, which is being linked into Jim's post.  So for even more garden musings do go over and enjoy.

1. Following on our visit to Great Dixter, I decided to pay homage to Christopher Llyod, or at least that is my excuse for picking a bunch of plants I had been fancying growing for a number of years. Great Dixter is well known for the collection of plants individually grown in pots amassed by the front door.

Gazania Frosty Kiss

This plant is what my dearly beloved describes as a clown's or magician's prop, which opens up when they pull it out of their sleeve, it is totally over the top and only opens when the sun is bright. The other two plants which I picked up quickly from the same market stall were ( was Lantana Bandolero Orange and Coleus Flamethrower Serrano.  My parents used to grow these types of plants, and I remember the smell of the Lantana hedge along the board boundary to their house.

2. Up on the shed shelf, even the succulents etc have been appreciating the showers we have enjoyed this week.

3. Once I have a plant that I love and does well in the garden, I am drawn to spotting them, and if in the right place, ie I can ask or buy another different cultivar, then I do.  In this way I now have several different Rodohypoxis.  They are currently on the garden tables in pots.

Rodohypoxis on garden table

After being kept dry overwinter in the shed as recommended, I gave them a water, and when they started to shoot divided them up.  Over the few years I have done this, and I must have forgotten than I had put some into the gravel garden and that I ought to have lifted them if following the advice of keeping them dry during the winter.  This little plant proves that for my garden, even with all the rain we had earlier in the winter, the Rodohypoxis can be left out all winter. 

Rodohypoxis growing in the gravel garden

4. Another plant in full flight in the gravel garden is Saxifrage Southside Seedling.

5. Photobombing as it were the above two photography is Hypericum polyphyllum grandiflorum, which is ready early morning for the visiting bumblebees.

6. Another poppy which I had been lurking in my seed box for a few years has come up, it is almost black.  I've lost the seed packet, so no name. Again early in the morning full of pollen and ready for the bumblebees.

Last week I showed a poppy casting its sepals, and people asked what it was like fully open....