Six on Saturday (1 August 2020)

The garden is looking quite colourful at the moment. Roses have begun to flower for a second time, the fragrant sweet peas are actually looking good this year, despite a ropey start, and Mrs Bradshaw, the red Geum, is in bloom again. Yet the Zinnias, the stars of the garden last summer, have proved to be nothing but trouble. I’m down to seven now after I found two snapped at the base (I’m tempted to blame a wood pigeon but it may have been the windy weather we had the other day) and two others have been heavily munched despite nightly slug and snail patrols. I’m not very hopeful any will make it to flowerhood. The dahlias on the other hand appear to be doing okay. Talking of which…

1. My first Six on Saturday was purchased a few weekends ago. The last dahlias I bought from a garden centre were something of a disaster; the Bishops of Llandaff and Auckland looked great when purchased but went downhill fast once they were planted. They were a no-show this year and I vowed to stick with tubers and seed. However, when I saw Honka I did a complete 360… wait, that’s not right, a complete 180, and plonked it in a trolley. It’s been nibbled a bit by earwigs but so far so good.

2. After numerous failed attempts at growing Catananche ‘Cupid’s Dart’ I finally have a flowering plant. It’s not an impressive specimen though, unlike a seedling I gave my mother-in-law last year which is a mass of flowers and twice the size. I moved this one and I think it resented it.

3. This climbing rose ‘Compassion’ was purchased after my wife inhaled it’s perfume at a garden centre soon after our local garden centre re-opened. I wasn’t sure where it would go (I hadn’t ordered the garden arch at that point) but I found a place for it next to the blue shed. This is its second flush of flowers.

4. An Osteospermum up next. I was convinced I’d kept the label for this one but could I find it? It’s growing in the re-vamped south facing front garden.

5. The Hibiscus has started to flower. It was a relief to see this come into leaf so early on in the spring after the tale of woe that was the first Hibiscus. It’s a very slow grower though. Patience is going to be required when it comes to waiting for this to help screen the patio from the curving path. Talking of the patio…

6. When I dug up some of the patio back in 2019 (you can read about it here) I had a plan: to increase planting space and to create a sort of separate ‘room.’ After a lot of umming and ahhing I decided an arch was needed and it arrived yesterday afternoon. Given the heat, the sensible thing would have been to put the thing up at the weekend when cooler weather was forecast, especially as I was feeling rather weary after spending the morning re-placing the line on the rotary washing device (a task made even more fun when it became apparent we’d bought too short a length of line). But I wanted the arch up there and then. The ground proved rockier that I’d anticipated and as the afternoon wore on I started to flag. I don’t do well in the heat and things started to get a bit fadey after a while, despite the odd sit down in the shade. However, the arch is up now. I have a rose and a clematis or two ready to grow up it so hopefully they’ll help soften the shiny galvanised steel in time. I’m not used to the new structure yet but I think I like it.

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.