Six on Saturday (4 March 2023)

Brrrrrr. And it’s set to get even more brrrrr early next week. Meteorological spring may have sprung but the garden seems to have stalled somewhat as many plants that were on the cusp of flowering (good word ‘cusp’) have thought better of it for now. Anyway, time for Six on Saturday.

1. The delivery of gravel I was waiting for last Saturday arrived just as I’d started eating some warmed up leftover macaroni cheese at 12.25pm. As feared, there was nowhere near enough, despite adding a few extra paving stones to the path to try and eke it out a bit. Feeling like I had to finish the job that very afternoon, I nipped to the garden centre and ended up buying the same quantity of gravel again, this time loading it into the little Suzuki, ignoring how alarmingly weighed down the back of the car looked. The gravel is still a little thin in places but it will do for now. The removable brick edging along the path and around the lawn has been raised to prevent the borders spilling over and hopefully the larger pebble-like gravel won’t get trampled into the lawn as easily as the old chippings.

2. The following day I decided to smash up the basin of the crumbling cement and stone bird bath and use the rubble, together with some other bits of old hardcore gathered from the garden over the years, to hide the water reservoir/pot of the solar powered water feature. The dry stone wall (filled with gravelly soil dug from the path to create a small raised bed) is rather precarious and I fear the neighbour’s cat may send it tumbling. Time will tell.

3. This Saxifraga ‘Pink Heart’ has been planted next to the water feature, together with an Aubrieta and another alpine, Erodium i’vealreadymislaidthelabelus. I tend to treat Saxifraga as annuals as they never survive here, although perhaps the improved drainage will suit it better.

4. Now this was a pleasant surprise. A returnee from a pack of mixed Wilko Iris reticulata that someone identified as ‘Clairette’ last year. Growing near a rock I put bird seed out on, miraculously it hasn’t been flattened by the wood pigeons.

5. The Irises seem to be lasting a lot longer in the cold weather, which is an upside I guess. However, they aren’t the main focus of this photo. Well, they’re not meant to be. The tulips have emerged! I suspect they might be ‘Violet Beauty.’

6. And finally… I’ve been pondering getting a yellow Hellebore for a while now and found myself ordering this one earlier in the week. It arrived within a few days. One of those less bashful Hellebores that hold their flowers up, it has a very Catchphrasey ‘say what you see’ kind of name: Helleborus x hybridus (Ashwood Evolution Group) ‘Yellow with golden nectaries and red flush’.

They were my Six on Saturday, a meme originally started by The Propagator. For more Sixes on Saturday, from all around the world, head over to the blog of the current Six on Saturday host, Jim.

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