Six on Saturday 07-09-2019

My legs have just about recovered from last weekend’s half marathon exertions. I finished in a respectable 1:45, about 5 minutes slower than I was aiming for. It was warm and sunny, not ideal conditions for a long race, and I did not take on enough water.  A little miffed, I have signed up for another race in October, the Oxford Half Marathon.  For this one I will be running for the Royal National Institute of Blind People, the RNIB, raising money for their important work with the blind and partially sighted.  If you’d like to donate to the cause, you can do that securely via this JustGiving page.

Anyhow, time for Six on Saturday. Six things, in the garden, on a Saturday. Could be anything – a flower, an insect, a failure, a success, a tool, a design, anything at all. Join in!

Here are my Six for this week.

1 – Hypericum ‘magical universe’, berries. The leavings after flowering are almost as attractive as the flowers they replaced.  The plant is smothered with them.

2 – Rose ‘The Pilgrim’.  Not its first SoS rodeo, but this third flush was worth a mention.  It is yellower than I remember the earlier flowers being, but still has the densely packed petals.  I’m expecting big things of this plant next year.

3 – Canna, unknown. Annoyingly, this flower set is less perfect now than it was earlier in the week.  Never mind, it is the triumphant crescendo of months of sowing, growing, nurturing and pest survival. Hopefully the canna will survive the winter and live to grow another day. I can’t be bothered to lift them…

4 – Clematis tangutica. I bought this at Wisley a few months ago, along with several other clematis plants. They have been a mixed bag, but some may have been past their best when I bought them. We shall see next year. This one is planted along the fence in the front garden. It has quickly topped the fence and is now flowering its socks off from top to bottom. The flowers are small and rather daintily dangle down, starting off as a closed bell shape.

5 – Abelia grandiflora.  This plant used to live in the shady border in the back garden. After hard-pruning it one year it sulked disgracefully. In the end I dug it up.  I didn’t immediately condemn it to death by compost heap, instead sticking it in a large pot with a cursory dose of soil then forgot about it.  When I re-planted the front garden I decided to give it another chance in a sunnier spot. It is a reformed character, a floral advert for the benefits of rehabilitation.

6 – Dahlia, possibly ‘Caribbean feast’.  This lurks, largely unloved and unprimped, in commandeered territory on the pavement side of my front wall.  It has survived its 2nd winter in the sandy, dry soil and is going great guns. Unstaked, the plant has flopped over then re-grown vertically and is now doing a good impression of being 2 or 3 plants, covered with flowers.  A happy accident.

Those are my Six for this week, 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 luvvly jubbly. For more details you can read the brief guide here.

Have a super weekend in the garden and don’t forget to check in as more links get added during the day.

I’ll be back next weekend for another #SixOnSaturday.