Six on Saturday (29 August 2020)

I had my first full week off work since Christmas and it’s been rather nice doing not much of anything. There was an afternoon garden centre crawl (several plant and bulb purchases were made), I wrestled with a floppy 8 foot Eucalyptus that came adrift from its support during Tuesday’s storm and the Lilac that I’d planted too close to the Buddleia got moved. My wife and I also visited my old ancestral home up in North Wales last weekend, once I’d figured out the various bubbling and extended household rules for England and Wales. Thankfully, as we were married when the moon was in Sagittarius, one of us had a pet budgie as a child and the other knew what eight sevens made without the aid of a calculator, fingers, baking beans or a Mr Men Times Tables book, it was fine to make the trip and stay over. Visits to the old ancestral home inevitably result in the odd plant acquisition or two and that leads me to my first Six on Saturday…

1. A Potentilla of unknown name. When I unpacked the car back in Somerset I also found what appeared to be a pot of soil. For the briefest of moments I was slightly concerned my mum had a gone a bit funny, but then I remembered they were the snow drops I’d pre-ordered during my last visit way back in February.

2. Next up, a pink Osteospermum. This was a new addition to the front garden a couple of months ago. It has taken a while to get going but has now got into its flowery stride. I hope it survives the winter.

3. Back in the spring I sowed some Chrysanthemum ‘Eastern Star.’ Some of them have just started to flower and apparently there must have been a mix up at the Wilko seed packing facility. It’s very pretty but ‘Eastern Star’ it ain’t.

4. I’d given this Aster frikartii ‘Jungfrau’ up for dead in the spring but it turns out it was just fashionably late. Purchased at the Taunton Flower Show last year, it’s bulking out nicely.

5. Which is something this Crocosmia ‘Jackanapes’ has yet to do. This might have something to do with the fact that I move it around every year to make room for this and that. I think I’ve finally found the perfect spot for it so hopefully it’ll start to do what all Crocosmia seem to do and spread around to the point where I’m pulling handfuls up to keep it under control.

6. And finally… I sowed a variety of Zinnia this year. While the slugs and snails have attacked a lot of the Zinnia elegans they appear to have left the shorter Zinnia ‘Jazzy’ alone. The flowers are smaller than those of Zinnia elegans and vary in colour and form. I have showed great restraint and featured just one this week, but I’ll feature some of the others in future SoSs.

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. Right, time to deadhead some dahlias. What was that? What are eight sevens? Hang on, I’ll need to grab the baking beans…

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