Six on Saturday - 20 June 2026

It is already nearly midsummer.  I am linking in this post over at Jim's where should you wish to you can find out how to take part, or can simply follow links to find out what six things from their gardeners others wish to share. 

In the gravel garden I have some small plants which are amongst my favourite, and it is certainly a place where these plants can be given a space without growing into each other.  At least that is the plan  and to fulfill this I often have to keep plants in check, reduce, or remove them.  My very favourites of course need propagation just to ensure I don't end up losing them all together.

1. Origanum Emma Stanley is my favourtie origanum for its display of pink blooms. This year I managed to root two small cuttings.  Here it is this week in the gravel garden.

Origanum Emma Stanley

2.  This plant isn't standing out that well against the gravel: Sisyrinchium 'Biscutella'  may well be moved somewhere different where the blooms can be better seen. However I rescued it late last year from an arrangement with other things in a shallow pot,  Its roots had almost been completely destroyed and I suppose I ought for now, just be pleased that it survived, it probably needs another year to get its roots well down.

Sisyrinchium 'Biscutella'

3. Easily standing out and attracting so many bees is this Teucrium pyrenaicum, which I have now had since June 2024.

Close up the purple shows up.

4. Another low grower with long roots and completely weatherproof, and drought proof in the gravel garden is this Phyla nodiflora aka Turkey tangle frogfruit. It is just starting to flower.

5. Over by the bird bath is Dierama 'Snowbells'.

Dierama 'Snowbells'

I was visiting a garden last year, where there many ripe seeds hanging across the pathway on the long stems of Dierama pulcherrimum. I sowed them last year and they were very easy to germinate outdoors in a pot.  Now I have divided them up and hope to plant them on the far edge of the gravel garden. Here they are in 'potting trough' getting a drink. It is said that they can take five years to reach flowering size. They will probably overwinter inside the shed in these pots.  

6. Cheilanthes lanosa aka Hairy lip fern is an unusual fern, which prefers a sunny situation and should be drought-tolerant when established. 

I bought it for its attractive woolly-grey dissected foliage but I had planted it in a place where it was outshone, outshaded, hidden by a campanula, but not the one of the shelf below.  It is back in a pot: as it is ' a dry land fern that prefers a loose, gritty rock garden setting and partial or full sun' it may well make its way to the gravel garden.

The little Campanula pulla is now in full flower, and doing well, and I may well be able to spare a piece to go into the gravel garden. It is such an intense blue and will show up there nicely. Nah I'm not bovvered either, you could call it 6b or  plants that will be going into the gravel garden! The penny will drop if you read to the end of Jim's post.