Six on Saturday 15-06-2019

Oh fickle weather. It has been raining on and off for over a week. You know when you’re a gardener when your first thought is “ooh, that’ll be good for the garden”, but one can have too much of a good thing!  The water is good, of course, and I’m lucky to have a fairly free draining plot, but what with the cool overnight temperatures, we could do with some sunshine to balance it all out.  Some things that one might think would have romped away by now have been checked.  My ricinus are all under a foot tall, the canna likewise, and the dahlias too. Hopefully that will change soon.

Time for Six on Saturday then. Six things, in the garden, on a Saturday. Could be anything – a flower, an interesting plant, a pest, a project, a job to do, a harvest, anything at all. Join in!

Here are my Six this week…

1 – Lychnis coronaria.  I have always had some of this in the garden, always either magenta or white. They flower for ages, the foliage is quite blameless and in general a reliable garden performer. It does seed about the place if you don’t dead-head but the seedlings are easy to spot and transplant well if stocks are needed.  I had heard tell of a pretty cross between the magenta and the white, but have never had any myself. Until this year!

2 – Lupin.  I’ve grown several from seed this year thanks to Fred, I doubt they will flower this year.  I have also bought a few. This one has been out for a couple of weeks, there are 6 or 7 flower stems on the plant, but it isn’t very tall.  Bright colours though.  I have thus far managed to keep our slimy friends at bay.

3 – Geranium of some sort.  I grew this from seed last year. It was listed in the seed list as “red leaved”. So far the leaves are very green, but perhaps they’ll go red later in the year. This particular plant has grown quite tall as it is fighting for space and light. The flowers are splotchy in a washed out sort of way. Not my favourite geranium, but all the seed-grown plants get a chance.

4 – Senecio ‘angel wings’. I gather it will flower at some point but these are grown primarily for the foliage. The leaves are quite thick, leathery one might say, but very silvery. I have seen these plants get very big in the border, mine is constrained in a large pot on the patio.  

5 – Campanula persicifolia. I bought a big plant half price last autumn and divided it into 3 or 4. I can only find one, I think the others are a little swamped by the army of really quite large poppy “seedlings” which have propagated themselves through my wisteria border. There are a lot of flowers on it, hopefully it will get established and do even better next year.

6 – Geranium ‘Rosanne’.  One of several of this variety that I bought cheap last year, they have taken a while to get going but the rain has given them a boost, they are now beginning to flower quite profusely.  I’ll let them establish for another year then I think I’ll be dividing them.  Whenever I see the label marked ‘rosanne’ I am moved to start singing the Police song (titular lyric adjusted accordingly). I’m never sure if I am doing an impression of Sting, or of Eddie Murphy doing an impression of Sting.  Closer to the latter, I suspect. Either way, she does not have to put out the red light.  Just the purple one.

Those are my Six, what are yours?  if you’d like to join in, just publish your post and pop a link to it in the comments below. If you also mention my blog in yours that would be fab. For more details you can read the brief participant guide.

I hope you get some quality time in the garden this weekend, don’t forget to check back in later on as more links get added during the day.

I’ll be back next weekend with another #SixOnSaturday

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