Six on Saturday 06-10-2018

This weekend I am mostly away from the garden, a family wedding and a birthday brunch. It is no small measure of the esteem I have for my out-laws that I am ready to drag myself away! Better be a good do, that’s all I’m saying.

Time for a quick Six on Saturday before we head off to Worcestershire.  Six things, in the garden, on a Saturday. Could be anything – a flower, a seed pod, a tool, a success, a failure, a pest, anything at all. Join in!

Here are my Six for this week.

1 – Stachys byzantina, lamb’s ear.  As is my wont at this time of year, I bought a couple of 3L pots of this on sale, good big plants, then promptly divided them. I now have 6 or 7 of theses in 2L pots. I used to have some of this, but I planted them in too shady a spot and they just faded away. Quite drought tolerant when established, they like a nice sunny spot. I just have to find one.  The velvety leaves are what I most like, the flowers are so-so, as I recall.

2 – Chilli habanero ‘Tobago seasoning’.  I find the gnarlier and uglier looking the chilli, the more nuclear the heat-levels. This one is probably ready to harvest, I am a little nervous about picking it, never mind eating it.  My chilli plants, all of which struggled to get going in the cold spring, are finally producing some fruit.  I am eying up the window sill in the office as a potential home for them for the next few weeks – it will soon be too cold for the plants in the greenhouse.

3 – Cotinus ‘Grace’, smokebush.  I prefer fire to the titular smoke, so I prune this hard each year for larger leaves.  I don’t get flowers, the smoke, but I do get fabulous leaf colour around this time of year. They are just starting to go, bottom up.  They look like shot silk when the sun catches them.

4 – Echinops ‘Veitch’s blue’.  I grew these from seed this year, not really expecting much from them aside from putting on a bit of bulk. One of the plants, however, is a trier.  I have a flower stalk, but it is only a couple of inches high. I almost missed this flower then, so low was it.  I spotted it while digging dandelions out of some nearby lawn (or future border, as I also call it), so this is my reward for being so virtuous. I’m not convinced it will colour up, I think the plant is a bit confused about what it is supposed to be doing. We’ll see.

5 – Geranium sanguineum ‘Max Frei’.  Bloody cranesbill!  That was fun. Not a curse, on this occasion, just another common name. Another of my recent buying frenzy at the local pity bench.  No flowers were in evidence when I bought it, but now it is having a last hurrah before the frost.  Max here forms a low clump, cushion stylie.  Not sure where I’m going to put him yet. A common problem.

6 – Nasturtium.  An uninvited and not entirely welcome guest. I grew these from seed a couple of years ago and they turn up like a bad penny every year now, it seems.  They have been very late to flower this year, only really showing their faces in the last week or two. It is a climbing variety, but usually ends up being a sprawl variety as I never seem to get around to tying them in to anything.  I pull it up when I get annoyed by it, but otherwise leave it be.  No doubt it’ll be back again next year.

Those are my Six for this week, what are yours?  if you’d like to dip your toe in, the water’s lovely, just publish your post then drop a link in to the comments below. For more details and other way’s to participate you can read the brief participant guide.

Have a fantastic weekend, and if you could mow my lawn, that would be great.  Don’t forget to check back in as more links are added during the day.

I’ll be back next week with another Six on Saturday.