Six on Saturday - 7 August 2021

 For those who know me in person, if they were asked what my favourite colours is, they may very likely say green.

1. This colour might stand out in the garden, but could also fade quite nicely.  In any case it will do very nicely for wrapping up presents or posies of flowers from the garden. I'd rather use something biodegradable in the garden and then everything can safely put into the compost bin or green recycling. I have a bit of a thing for string, I also like raffia! But how long is a bit of string? This piece is 110 metres.

2. Its been a strange week weather wise with lots of grey skies and rain, and wind, but it doesn't half make the greens shine out!  Jim will probably know the name for this fern.  It just grew itself on the edge of a pot when we were up in Warwickshire, and I planted it up, and brought it with me.

3. On my patio area, I have various plants in pots.  Sometimes they are newer plants that are kept close to admire, or assembled to make a little seasonable tableau.  I like evergreens so I have pots with conifers, and a twisted bay.  As to colour: new this year are the apricots and oranges. Cuphea cyanea: they just bring a smile to my face with their cute tubular flowers, and again the colour orange seems to pop in the garden at this time of the year, and particularly in the wet greyness. Luckily my friend Sally Gregson, the very knowledgeable plants person, gave me two of these plants, so there is one each side of the area. I'll try very hard to carry these half hardy shrubby perennials over to the next season.. I'll look into taking cuttings and moving some into the garden.  

4. They go very nicely with a mix of other plants such as the wonderful floriferous tub of begonias plants under the young Fatsia, and of course last week you got to see Dahlia David Howard with its rich orange blooms and deep purplish bronze leaves.

5. I first saw Clematis Arabella at the Tatton Park Show back in 2016, and the name must have stuck with me.  If I go to Morrisons, which for our non UK SOSs is mainly a food supermarket, I always look over their plants and sometimes take a punt on them. For a couple of quid I bought a small specimen, and have taken good care of it and potted it on twice.  This is what Clematis Arabella looked like one pot up from the small supermarket one, a few weeks ago...

up another pot size it now has sixteen blooms all  a bit soggy in the rain, but a nice pop of colour non the less to contrast with the the first Cuphea.

Only lately in Issue 301 of Gardens Illustrated I read tha tArabella is a 'non-climbing' Clematis, and this will do very nicely in a pot until it finds a space in the garden, maybe for two or three years yet. In the ground at the current size it would succumb to the ever rampaging slugs as did the 'full price' specialist grown Clematis Justa only a year after it was planted.

6.  Another plant whose blooms are adding that little pop of colour are the 'Coat Pocket' Bidens. The plants are not yet exactly smothered in flowers, but I like them with their nicely spaced blooms against the ferny foliage.  I have one plant in the gravel garden, which has fewer leaves but more flowers, and four other plants with  an assortment of structure in their growth,  in my' new this year' terracotta large half pan from Whichford Pottery, which is in the middle of the sitting circle table. One expects uniformity from F1s but  one ought to expect a bit of a mixture from 'open pollinated' plants.

6b. Not everything is 'bright and sunny' or tickety boo. Yesterday as I looked over the garden I noticed that the Foxtail Rosemary is looking decidedly sick, with its fur on its tails dropping down, with a bit of mange setting in.  Has it been too wet?  Most probably the cause is at root level ie beneath the gravel. This is the third rosemary I have lost in the last year. Still if it has to go, that makes more room for something new.  I still have a large Rosemary backing the gravel area that seems to be OK.  I was going to dig it up and replace it with some rooted cutting taken early this year, but I think it will stay a little longer, as rosemary is a herb I use several times a week. Maybe my gravel garden has become a 'sump' for all the rain and the rosemary is slowly drowning.

The big question for the coming week is: will it survive.....Find out in next week's sequel. 

I've been glued to 'The Killing' on iplayer, and watched the last two of twenty episodes last night!

Sometimes I get down about the garden as when I have to 'despatch' plants or cut them back because they are outgrowing their space, but one only has to look on the 'bright side' and look for the silver lining! All of us hopefuls or disillusioned gardeners who are up to writing about six(ish) things can link up with the Prop, and commiserate, copy, and compare this week.