Six on Saturday 04-04-2020

This strange limbo existence continues. Mrs P and I are both fortunate that our jobs are a) safe and b) possible to do remotely from home. I am very grateful to have to garden and greenhouse to escape into, I can’t imagine being cooped in a small flat with no outside space. My garden is getting lots of attention so if it is not in tip-top condition by the summer you could be forgiven for asking “what have you been up to!?” In the meantime, let’s do Six on Saturday. Six things, in the garden, on a Saturday. Could be anything. A tulip, a tulip, more tulips, a display of tulips, or just tulips. I mean, you decide. Join in!

Here are my Six…

1 – Narcissus ‘Thalia’. A pure white one, and popular for that reason. New to me this year, I think it is rather elegant.

2 – Cosmos ‘Apricot Lemonade’. These are almost ready to move on. I think I will plant them straight into 9cm pots, skipping my usual 7cm stage. I did this last year and they seemed to appreciate not being mucked about with so much. I have another pot or two like this of other cosmos varieties. I would not be without them.

3 – Malope ‘Vulcan’. Complete with cat paw-print. I think they like the warmth of the heated bench. They would normally tip-toe around obstructions like this, but perhaps I disturbed it. Despite the feline clodhoppers, the seedlings seem fine, I’ll certainly have plenty. I’ve not grown these before. The flowers are bright magenta-pink with an unusual green 5-pointed start at the centre. I gather they get to 90cm so mid to back of the border for this lot, where they should flower through the summer.

4 – Rose ‘The Pilgrim’, a cutting. I took this as a soft-wood cutting last year. It rooted happily and grew a bit. I parked it in the cold-frame over the winter and potted it on to a 3L pot just a week or two ago. It has begun to grow on fairly rapidly. While it continues to grow, I need to find a home for it. I have a couple of cheap and very inferior roses along the front fence that might be for the high jump, taking one for the team. I’d be trading up for a younger, prettier model, as it very much were.

5 – Wisteria buds. Not long now! The increasingly robust wisteria has responded with aplomb to its winter prune. There are lots of buds, so I hope the frost is kind to us.

6 – Tulip ‘Trick’. These were planted in the ground in autumn 2018 but did not show up last year for some reason, just leaves. I had low expectations but here they are, flowering away, quite the thing. I do love a tulip.

Those are my Six for this week, what are yours? If you’d like to join in, and why wouldn’t you, surely you haven’t anything better to do, 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 lovely. For more details you can read the brief participant guide.

The weather here looks set very fair for the weekend so I expect I’ll be out in the garden, there’s a long list of things to get done. Don’t forget to check back later in the day as more links get added.

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