Feeling festive yet? Things turned wintry here at the start of this week, with lows of -9°c on Monday night. Brrr! We had a few cm of snow on Sunday, all gone by mid-week, but enough for the kids to take themselves off sledging.  It’s expected to be a slightly more clement 5 or 6°c this weekend, jolly gardening weather.

Anyhow, it’s time for Six on Saturday. Six things, in the garden, on a Saturday. Could be anything – a favourite plant, a job completed, wildlife, plans, anything at all.  Join in!

Here are my Six for this week.

1. Compost worms.  I turned the heap the other day, extracting as I went a good amount of finished compost. I was pleased to see a lot of wiggly worm action in the heap – a good sign. They do a lot of the work, munching away at my garden and kitchen waste.

2. Greenhouse pellies. I’m aware this year more than others that I don’t have much in the way of winter colour. In some ways I don’t mind this, winter is the off-season, a chance to prepare for the three seasons of hoped-for interest. This pellie, an anonymous variety, is busy flowering away in its winter quarters. Despite the chill earlier in the week, it is still game.

3. Eryngium family.  Earlier in the year I took some root cuttings of a long lost eryngium or sea holly plant. The cuttings have rooted, and the parent plant has perked up, having looked highly unamused by being blocked out by a rampaging solidago. I’ll plant that out in the spring, and I hope the offspring will be happy enough in this pot till the spring when I can pot them on.

4. Planter. I’ve made several of these planters over the last few years. They are made from scrap wood, usually old pallets. This one lives on the patio and looks bare at the moment, having been stripped of past-it annuals last weekend. I am almost certain it has tulips incarcerated in the depths, stripy ones, I hope to see them return in a few months.

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5. Snowman. It’s not looking its best now, but shortly after construction it looked like this. Who doesn’t love a snowman? I claim no credit, entirely the work of #4 child.

6. Cornus sanguinea “midwinter fire”. I have two of these, both grown from runners from a neighbour’s shrub. This is their second year in my possession, planted out earlier this year. They are knee high at the moment and look a bit rubbish, shapeless. I am itching to give them a good haircut in early spring, to promote gowth, but for now I’ll enjoy their potential. I like the variation in the stem colour, which unlike the cornus mas alba is not plain red, but grades of yellow and orange – what #2 child, expert nail-polisher, would no doubt describe as an “ombre”.  I am expecting better from this shrub next year, else it’s for the shredder!

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Those are my Six, what are yours? Why not join in? We’d love a nose round your garden. Just write your post, add a comment here with a link to yours and maybe add a link back to this blog in yours. For more details, please see the brief participants guide.

Have a great weekend and don’t forget to check back in over the next 48 hours as links to other great Six posts get added.

I’ll be back next week for the penultimate Six on Saturday of the year.