Six on Saturday (20 October 2018)

As the days get ever shorter it’s getting harder to find time to take photos of the garden in advance of compiling a Six on Saturday blog and increasingly photo taking is actually happening on Saturday!

1. I still haven’t planted all of the packs of bulbs I bought back in September, including these Purple Sensation alliums. And I’ve purchased more bulbs since then. We already have Purple Sensation in the garden but they never do that well. I don’t think they like the heavy clay soil. A few flower but most look rather weedy and tend to get flattened on a blustery day. But undeterred I got some more.

I’m planning on taking some of the gravelly soil from the spot where the growhouse used to be (and where the new tree will be planted when it arrives) and digging it into the back bed to make it more free draining and hopefully more favourable for allium growing. That’s the idea anyway.

2. I purchased a new white Japanese Anemone a few weeks ago as our original one hadn’t flowered this year. I just need to work out where to plant it.

3. The snap dragons are still flowering away and providing a lot of colour in the garden.

4. As are some of the Linaria Maroccana ‘Fairy Lights Mixed’. I’m definitely going to try these again next year.

5. And that patio rose (Violet Cloud) that has featured in a few Six on Saturdays is still going strong.

6. But plants haven’t been the top priority over the past week. The old shed that was emptied last weekend is no more.

It was replaced with a new one and thankfully it fits perfectly! I’ll confess now that we didn’t dismantle the old one or erect the new one. The shed people did it all and very well they did it too. My wife and I painted the two panels that were going up against the fences last Saturday, the plan being that we wouldn’t need to move it to paint these sides once built. However, some untreated side strips were added to each corner and I also wanted to fit a gutter, so we had to move it anyway.

It’s well-built, smells wonderfully timbery but weighs a ton. It’s now rather dazzling with its Natural Stone and Pale Jasminey paint job (though I’m not entirely sure about the Pale Jasmine – it may require a more sensible colour that won’t show the dirt quite so much). I’m now trying to justify spending a small fortune on a very small aluminum and glass mini lean-to greenhouse in Cotswold Green that would go perfectly on the end of the shed. It’s in my basket but I’ve yet to pluck up the courage to click on the ‘proceed to checkout’ button.

And they were my Six on Saturday. For more Sixes on Saturday, from all around the world, take a look at the site of the chap who started it all over at https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com.