Six on Saturday - 25 April 2026

 During the week I had my good gardening friend Alison visit and she brought another friend whom I met for the first time.  Not dissimilar to SOS where we visit each others gardens via Jim's post. 

We had a  tour round the small front and back gardens, and of course had coffee and cake in the garden.  It was so warm we sat in the shade.  It probably was not the best time for digging up little patches of plants, but hopefully with care and shade they will soon perk up and I hope Julie will enjoy them.

1. One of the plants which Julie had a piece of was Saxifraga stolonifera which is a fantastic ground covering plant for shaded areas with' if one stretches the point, purple or rather maroon and green leaves, especially as later it will have some delightful flowers.

Saxifraga stolonifera

2. Alison asked for a piece of this little plant growing very successfully in the gravel garden.  The little blue pom pom pom flowers are just starting to open which of course called out to be admired. Globularia cordifolia, commonly known as the heart-leaved globe daisy or matted globularia, is a low-growing, evergreen subshrub.  

Globularia cordifolia

3. Nearby the Thyme 'Jekka' is looking glorious, and as it extends, it roots itself into the gravel and pieces of that too were easily prepared.

Thymus 'Jekka'

Loved by the bees and also frequently used in the kitchen, it is the most floriferous and easy going thymes in the garden.

4. Early this year I took one of the biggest of the Polemonium 'Lambrook Mauve' and refreshed it by pulling it apart and replanting the most vigorous sections in a piece of 'improved' soil, and therefore it was easy to pass on a good young plant onto to Julie, with the strict instructions to cut off all the flowering stems just this year so that the plant could re-establish itself nicely.

Polemonium 'Lambrook Mauve'

5. It looks as if the theme for this week could be purply blue especially if I showed you one plant that I had been seeking out for years, ever since I saw it in 2016 in the Birmingham Botanic gardens.

I moved it to the shade this week, and I think I may even have to move it to a plastic pot as it is not coping very well in this hot dry weather. It is a tricky one and this time I will not be dividing it as I did with my blue one, which I lost.

Viola Pedata bicolour

Luckily another little blue one is soldiering on, but it is in intensive care right now, and no visitors allowed!

6. The Scilla Peruviana are in full swing..including these newly divided ones sheltering close by the Viburnum plicatum ‘Mariesii’.

The rest of the gang are rather raucously enjoying the sun on the dry southern side of the front garden amongst other plants that enjoy this position.

Scilla Peruviana

Extra Growing Angels Fishing Rods (Dierama) from seed

My seedlings are up, it will be ages till they are large enough to flower.  I shall enjoy watching them thrive and hopefully not falter.  Please do not make me admit to where I obtained the seed from!! They were only falling across the path and being trodden on my lord!

In a Vase on Monday - Small spring vase

For this In a Vase on Monday I give you this spring mini arrangement featuring the beautiful Primula Treborth Yellow.  The lovely soft mauve flowers are from Polemonium ‘Lambrook Mauve’ which contrast beautifully with the yellow of the Primula.  Anna recommended this Polemonium to me, and since getting it in 2021, each late winter I have taken pieces and simply pushed them in the ground such that I have several plants across the garden.  The third little flower is a diminutive pansy Viola Tricolor which seeds itself gently around the garden.

The little vintage brass snail often slithers across the photographs, and helps to give a idea of the scale for some IAVOM. It was the idea of the imaginative Cathy to start this series of get togethers each Monday with flowers from our gardens. 

Six on Saturday - 18 April 2026

This is a very sad time for our leader Jim, but he has valiantly and bravely decided that his garden is to be his refuge and I am sure his personal friends and family will be supporting him as well.  His garden was shared with his wife Sue who was I am particularly fond and knowledgeable on cacti and succulents, so it is a fitting tribute that Jim's first plant this week was one of Sue's Echeverias.  I am linking this week's post on Jim's blog. 

1. In the conservatory border I have a number of primroses and other spring specials. 

Primula Garryarde Guinevere

Primula 'Guinevere' or 'Garryard Guinevere' came to me via Broadleigh gardens and is quite late flowering for me.  With dark leaves and a polyanthus form quite a beauty. 

2. Also from Broadleigh Gardens is this Scilla hughii in the front garden. It is yet to produce any offsets unlike the Scilla Peruviana which is growing well elsewhere in the garden.

Scilla hughii

3. Another favourite which makes this the third from Broadleigh Gardens: a little violet which is just starting to flower. There is a charm about it. Viola cucullata alba, with its large flower all white with mauve guidelines poised above its recently emerged leaves.  

4. Toona sinensis is still in its pot. I have yet to decide where and whether it will go in the ground. It was quite a vibrant pink a couple of weeks back, but it taking on a more silvery hue now.

Chinese cedar

5. As the light fails in the evening the newly emerging leaves on Fatsia 'Spiders Web' look like so many waving hands. I've never had so many white leaves, I wonder what has caused this?

6.  This may or may not be Primula Maisie Michael, it should be more yellow. But my pledge not to buy has been broken, I've found a few different ones including another 'Maisie Michael' from someone else, and it will be fun to compare them.

The garden seems to developing along the lines of a spring garden, let us see what happens in the weeks ahead.  This coming week I am going to have a block of time that I can be in the garden just as much as I like...I hope I have the right weather it is forecasted.

 

In a Vase on Monday - Beauties and Thugs

A larger vase than normal is needed this week had me hunting around the house.  Most had arrangements of dried flowers, but I spied amongst my Pewter collection in the kitchen the deep and wide pewter biscuit barrel.

The White Centaurea Montana Alba is a 'low effort plant'. I was reading an article by Jack Wallington In the April 2026 Gardens Illustrated, and it struck me immediately that White Centaurea Montana Alba falls into the group of surefire plants that grow in many conditions, don't need pruning and don't need staking. I just cut it right down and it pops back up with more flowers throughout the year.

Slightly more effort is this double white Hellebore, which is now green and forming seeds.  With only one flowering per year it is a slightly different league to the Centaurea. The stems keep firm at this stage and I rather like the detail.

The thug this week are the Spanish Bluebells, which I have been in constant battle with since we moved here.  I try to cut the flowers as early as possible in the season as well as pulling up and trying to remove the bulbs. Otherwise the garden would be overrun by them.

As usual I'm joining with in Cathy to celebrate the act of cutting a few flowers from our gardens, and talking about them on our blogs. 

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....