Six on Saturday (9 March 2024)

It’s been a week of sun, frost and showers. The sparrows are busy gathering nesting material in the garden, pulling at the silvery strands of Stipa out in the front garden. Last Sunday dawned bright and sunny and I finally felt motivated enough to get out in the garden to do a bit of tidying up. Roses were pruned, blood was spilt and wounds were attended to. They weren’t the only plants to receive a bit of a chop, and that leads me to my first Six on Saturday…

1-3. The faded blooms of Hydrangea ‘Miss Belgium’ were removed, initially with great care, chopping back to a strong bud, and then a little less carefully as I couldn’t quite reach far enough into the border to get at them without trampling on this and that. The Hyacinths have done really well this year, although several have toppled over due to the sheer weight of the blooms. This is a double flowered variety in the front garden (I raced out with my camera having checked there was nobody about – I’m not very sociable). In a corner of the back garden the half standard Prunus incisa ‘Kojo-no-Mai’ is bursting into flower – I suspect it will feature again over the coming weeks.

4-6. One plant that has featured on numerous occasions is the Winter Honeysuckle. It started flowering in December but is still producing the odd fragrant bloom. A few of the oldest stems will get chopped back to the ground in a few weeks to encourage some new shoots. I’m still having issues with tiny snails munching on the flowers of this and that. They’ve even had a go at the pea-like flowers of a Coronilla – something I’ve never seen before. Thankfully, they’ve overlooked these Primroses – for now though at least. And finally, set off perfectly by the upside down yellow bucket weighed down with a brick to protect the water feature, is this rather keen Tulip (‘Word Friendship’ I think). Worryingly, they seem to be flowering about 4 weeks earlier than last year.

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 our Six on Saturday host, Jim. Hmm, it’s raining out there. I don’t thing there’ll be any more tidying up in the garden today. Perhaps I’ll do a spot of online seed buying instead.