Six on Saturday

Given that it has continued to be wet for what feels like 75% of the time and the temperatures are sliding towards the norm for this time of the year, whatever that means, and having a small garden, wouldn't you think that a sensible person would have taken a sabbatical both from gardening and from posting six things on Saturday?  If butterflies, bumble bees, bees and humming bird hawkmoths can still fly to feed, then I am holding back from pruning back all the remaining flowers. Once the first frosts hit, they will need to be addressed. For more gardening and seasonal activities, do visit Jim's Garden Ruminations, who leads this weekly get together.

1.  This border auricula 'Old Cottage' thinks it is spring, and after being moved up a pot has promptly started flowering.  But what are the little critters that have been making these scars on the leaves?

2. With all the wet weather and lacking the luxury of a glass house with good ventilation or even a well ventilated alpine house, I am forever moving plants from the shelter of the shed albeit with a window, to the garden whenever there are a few hours of dry weather.  I haven't room for such housing by the way!

3. In late August I lifted the Limonium bellidifolium from the gravel garden, and divided it, but replanted it in a well drained gravelly soil into a pot.  In the spring I shall separate out the plants, but I am happy to report that all parts are doing well and growing very healthily all crowded together. 

Limonium bellidifolium

4. Along with picking up stones and bringing them back to the garden to arrange about the place, I have the habit of picking up other curious things, I did like and still like this stump of a tree which had been burned on some garden bonfire, and had been dumped on a grass verge. I once saw a sculpture make up of charred trees, and maybe that had inspired me! 

Charred tree stump in the garden

Sculpture made from charred trees

5. It has been a good year for Fuchsias in the garden, and even after I thought I had dug out one particular one last year, I couldn't have done such a good job of it, as this little has popped up in that spot.  The one that I moved is also doing well!

6.  Ferns too can take on autumn hues, its leaves paling, and it will be ready to shed them shortly.  Grown in a pot since I bought it in 2015, but repotted a couple a times.  With the passing seasons Athyrium otophorum var. okanum is growing little 'trunks'. I am sure Jim or another reader with a good handle on botanical terms will know the correct name, I would be ever so grateful if you would add it to the comment section.

That is all for now my friends, I am off to the HPS local group AGM and lecture this morning and am taking a few plants for their sale table.  I still can't shrug off this propagating habit!