Six on Saturday 28-07-2018

A quick Six from me this week, busy packing for holidays! Six things, in the garden, on a Saturday, could be anything, you know the drill. Join in!

Here are mine for this week.

1 – Rose ‘Dr Eckener’. I was concerned that this rose had died, so slow was it to get going compared to two others bought at the same time from Peter Beale. It caught up and is now flowering away. The semi-double flowers are fairly open, pink with yellow centres. It smells fabulous too, although not as strong as the ‘Rosy Madder’.

2 – Hibiscus ‘Marina’, bought as a badly watered rescue earlier in the year. I planted it in what I thought was plenty of space but it is now a bit swamped by the nearby helenium and the tithonia. It has blue-ish flowers with a purple centre. I’ll probably move it later in the year to give it room to breathe.

3 – Fuchsia sommatorother. Just minds its own business in a little planter on the sunny side of the alley. Nothing special, but pretty in a standard fuchsia sort of way. These two flowers look a bit stressed, in fact.

4 – Clematis finallyflowered. This was a cutting, from what exactly is now a mystery, but it’s been in a planter in the front garden for a couple of years. It doesn’t like drying out so it’s only since I got around to setting up the irrigation gizmo that it has perked up. New growth and a single flower have been the results so far.

5 – Compost heap. I built a new heap in an empty bay last weekend. The material was mostly brought in. Layers of fresh-ish horse manure, spent hops from the local brewery, shredded cardboard and newspaper, plus some shredded garden waste. Building big in one go like this encourages a very active heap that composts down faster and at higher temperature than one built slowly. It is cooking away, reaching 60°c in 5 days. That should be hot enough to put paid to any weed seed hiding out in the manure.

6 – Eye of Sauron. Those of you that follow along on twitter may have seen this before. The latest changes to the garden layout are complete now. I am enjoying using this little seating area. The planting is a bit random, just whatever I had knocking around in pots. I’m looking forward to it growing on and making a nice hidey-hole to sit and enjoy a cuppa or a cheeky G&T of an evening.

Those are my Six, what are yours? If you’d like to join in, please do, just write your post then pop a link into a comment down below, and maybe add a link back to this blog in yours. For more details you can see the brief participants guide.

Have a super weekend, I shall be off on holiday by the time you read this, so may not respond with the usual promptness to any comments.

I’ll be back next weekend, hopefully, with a Slovenian #SixOnSaturday.