Six on Saturday - 15 August 2026

The garden could just be abandoned and hence no SOS. However I think I would be gardening to the end, and so Six items have been scrapped together in solidarity with Jim who leds this gang of gardeners.  By the way there has not been a jot of rain this week, again, and the temperatures have been several degrees higher,both day and night, than the forecasts, which shows just how the built environment: houses, roads and drives and bare baked earth hold the heat. 

I mentioned last week that I was off to the Taunton Flower Festival for the first time.  Even though the first and last parts of my journey was on my bike, it didn't mean that I wouldn't be buying plants.  If you like succulents, you can imagine my delight at finding a display full of the most gorgeous succulents: Piccolo Plants from Branscombe.  Tips and advice were sought, and I came home of course with some plants.  

1. My Crassula falcata miniatum has never flowered and I asked for advice about this.  We are in correspondence about this, and one of the pictures I sent was this one which shows the new plant bought of Crassula perfoliata:Common Name - Crassula Falcata, Airplane Plant, Propellor Plant, and mine behind it, with its much smaller side leaves.

Piccolo have several forms of this succulent in their nursery, and maybe there will be an answer from Tom.  I was in great hope of my new plant producing the bright flower if not this year, then next. I had potted up the new plant into a terracotta pot, and placed it on the table further down the garden.  In the picture above, the plants are not shown to their best as the table is more or less the same colour!  From the study I heard some great mischief between some boisterous young magpies in the garden, so I looked out of the window and couldn't believe my eyes.  One of them was 'tasting' my newly repotted Crassula.  Quelle domage damage!  It will in time regrow and then I shall cut off the undamaged tip and repot.

Magpie damage

I had another two plants from Piccolo plants which I shall talk about another week.  If the weather doesn't buck up soon, there will hardly be a garden to write six things about, except for dried up shrivelled things.

2. It is not often that Mr S helps in the garden, as I like to spend my time there. However I am not tall so when the top of the bay tree needs to be clipped, I can call on Mr S's services. He is using the Darlac Garden Snapper which I use regularly to reach those high up roses when dead heading or indeed pruning across the borders. 

3. Restio Baloskion Tetraphyllum 'Devon Glade' was amongst several of the Restios at a stall at last Saturday's visit to the Taunton Flower Festival. It was its beautiful feathery green foliage that appealed to me, and definitely not a plant that had been on my list. The stems are called culms, and I was advised to remove about a third every spring. For the moment it is staying in its pot.   Mr S reminded me that the garden is starting to look like a nursery again!  When my friend Eileen mentioned that she had more or less left her garden to flounder and that she would pick up gardening again in the autumn or later, she said she was a project gardener and that got me thinking about myself.  I don't think I am a project gardener at all: I enjoy the maintenance, and the plants themselves more than anything, and propagation, the garden evolves.....

4.  Thursday late afternoon saw a partial eclipse, and we were out in the garden and used the conical strainer which had smaller holes and a sheet of paper to get the projection of numerous eclipses.  This hot weather has seen us thankful that we have a garden with two seating areas.  Except for a couple of days this week when it was just too hot to even contemplate opening the back door, we have had all meals out in shade having to defer lunch to a later time simply to have the shade of the house to sit in.

5. I was tidying along the path by the shady border, and one thing led to another.  Did I say some time ago that I ought not to grow mint in the ground? I didn't heed my own advice, and with the dry ground it was fairly easy to remove almost all the roots!  I have now planted some up in a large pot, as I do like to use it from time to time.  The rest of the Chocolate Mint went into the garden green recycling bin.

6. I usually come across Millwood Plants during the spring time at The Bishop's Palace, and it was interesting to see what they had on offer at the Taunton Festival, this time of the year.  I came away with two plants:  Hakonechloa macra 'Naomi' which offers a unusual change in colour in the autumn  and a Sedum 'La Vie en Rose' which is a lower growing white edged leaf Hylotelephium  plant for the front of the border. The plants are not yet planted out but in semi shade near to the house where they are easier to water.

The various stalls offered to keep plants for me as I bought them, but I explained that I wanted to carry them as that way I could guage when I had bought enough, or rather what I could cope with on my bicycle.  That raised an eyebrow or two! At least it limits my buying!