Six on Saturday - 11 April 2026

We had two days of very warm weather and now the temperatures have dropped again.  I have a few more seeds to sow, and yet the garden remains the same size, the question as yet unanswered is where will they fit in. Several of us are linking in this weekly meme together.

1. I've grown several Phlox to date, but currently have only two. Phlox bifida 'Ralph Hayward' I have shown several times over the past few years is doing well.  I took cuttings last year and have put them in bowls this year.  The Phlox bifida 'Alba' looks very smart on one of the tables.

Phlox bifida 'Alba'

2. We found a local wood to walk to this week where the white wood anemones were growing in large swathes under the mixed woodland deciduous canopy.  I learnt this week that the little yellow plant that I bought in 2024 from Long Acre Plants at The Bishop's Palace Rare Plant Fair needs similar conditions, whereas it is growing in the sunny rose bed.  The bronze of its emerging leaves is a lovely contrast for the flowers that have already emerged.  The sad thing is that the slugs are rather partial to the blooms. 

Anemone x lipsiensis Pallida

3. As well as Anemones in that wood, there were loads of the simple lesser celandine, and that leads me nicely to show this lovely double form of Ficaria verna. Like the Anemone, this one is summer dormant.

Double form of the celandine

4. I was very fortunate to receive a fine clump of the hose in hose Primula vulgaris' Mount Juliet'. With a little careful slicing I have three plants, and have learnt both from Caroline and my old copy of Primulas Old and New by Jack Wemyss-Cooke that these need a soil made hearty by the addition of manure! If anyone would like to recommend any other publications which I could get second hand, please leave a comment below. This week I was lucky to find three sacks of horse manure. Mr S has a bad back at the moment, and I was so elated to find the manure just round the corner, that I even managed to lift the sacks and stack them in the car boot.  It is the first half a mile the car has done in over a month!

Primula vulgaris' Mount Juliet'

5. I was sent the wrong bulbs!! I ordered and was invoiced for 10 Fritillaria michailovskyi but, from the picture, I can tell was sent the wrong ones.  Instead they look very much like Fritillaria acmopetala which Pottertons also sells. Only half of the bulbs have come up, but that may well be the wet conditions this winter. I think in future for  small bulbs such as these, I shall buy them at the fairs in the green, when I can see them in flower. It is starting to grow on me and I like the 'common' name pointed petal fritillary.  

Fritillaria acmopetala

6. Of the dwarf Irises I had, only one of those is left.  Blame me for sure, as I probably allowed other plants to crowd them out.  Iris pumila Dark Purple Fuzzy DBI has the most purple of purple flowers on its stout short stems.  I still yearn after Knick Nack, and ought to make a call out to friends that I shared many divisions with. 

 Iris pumila Dark Purple Fuzzy DBI

That's the end of this SOS, the garden calls to me: I have seeds to sow, divisions to make and plants to move....