Six on Saturday 01-02-2020

Well, that’s it then. After the best part of 50 years the UK has left the European Union. Depending on your world view this will either be the best thing since sliced bread, long overdue, or an act of national self-harm with far reaching geopolitical and economic consequences. Only time will tell. We’ve also left January, which seemed to go on forever. I wonder what winter has in store for us in February, it’s been pretty benign so far. I have pruned and trained all my climbing roses, all of which are putting out new growth, and I’ve cut back nearly all the clematis that need it, I’ll do the rest this weekend if I get the chance. Anyhow, time for Six on Saturday. Six things, in the garden, on a Saturday. Could be anything, a flower, a plan, a tool, a pest, foliage, things to do, anything at all. Join in!

Here are my Six for this week.

1 – Hours of my time back. The last two summers have been hot and quite dry at times, necessitating hours of watering to keep things alive. I’ve decided to upgrade my watering system so it can handle the whole garden. We had a plumber in doing some work so I got him to put an extra outdoor feed in. This will allow me to run 25mm pipe around the garden at mains pressure. I’ll spur off it in each area of the garden, putting in a tap and timer which I can then run the usual 16mm watering systems off. I can set the timers to run in sequence so the pressure is sufficient. I’ll have to buy a few bits and pieces to complete it but I think it’ll be worth it. I hope you all appreciate the public service, I guarantee it will now be a wet summer this year.

2 – Hellebore, purple’un. At the risk of being helleboring, here’s another one. This clump was a pressie from grannysgarden, I only got around to planting it a week or two ago. It has flowered nicely.

3 – Snowdrop. I bought 100 no-name bulbs very cheap on Amazon 18 months ago. Very few of them have come back, and there are no signs of any clumping up. Serves me right for being a cheapskate, I’ll have to invest in some better quality bulbs later this year, or perhaps I can get some ‘in the green’ now.

4 – Hydrangea bud. Not sure when or why I bought this plant. As I recall it was on the pity bench, so that’s why, I guess. It didn’t do much last year, but seems to be putting on plenty of buds. Hope they don’t get frosted. It should be ok, it’s in a reasonably sheltered spot close to the house.

5 – Crocus carpet. In my bulb frenzy last year I bought a few hundred crocus. I put a couple of hundred in the lawn. This will probably drive me a bit nuts later when I want to mow it, but in the meantime it should be a good show. I can’t remember which these are, they’ll either be Tricolor or Cream Beauty.

6 – Dahlia seeds. I grew ‘Bishop’s Children’ a few years ago which did quite well. I saw these which I thought looked fun so I will give these a go this year.

Those are my Six for this week, what are yours? If you’d like to give it a bash, 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 spiffing. For more details you can read the participant guide here.

Have a jolly gardening weekend, don’t forget to check back in as more links get added during the day.

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