Six on Saturday 25-04-2020

Nearly the end of April, downhill till Summer now. My garden is responding enthusiastically to the warm sunshine we have had in such abundance the last few weeks. I have roses in flower, even a sweet pea bloom or two. With that comes summer levels of watering, which is handy as I’m about more than usual and able to do it. It will become a pain though, so I need to make real my big plans for irrigation. It will cost me a few hundred quid I think, but let’s call that a saving as I won’t be buying a rail season ticket this month, and besides, it should last for years and think of the person-days of watering time I’ll save. How easily we justify garden spending! Time for Six on Saturday. Six things, in the garden, on a Saturday. Could be anything, a flower, an interesting leaf, a tool, a project to do, a success, a failure, anything at all. Join in!

Here are my Six for this week.

1 – Geum ‘Flames of Passion’. I recall remarking last year that this was a rather pretentious name, but still. I moved this plant last week, just a couple of feet, it was in danger of being swamped. I have an unfortunate tendency to pay scant attention to the received planting distances. This pays dividends in the short term, but does eventually result in overcrowding.

2 – Tiarella, possibly Pink Skyrocket. I don’t know where this came from, I must have bought it in an end of season frenzy last year. I planted it in the recently expanded shady border where it seems very happy indeed. I have another which I’ve had for a while which looks pretty anaemic in comparison.

3 – Tomato food. I was fretting about not having any liquid feed, and after last year’s experience of frequently forgetting to feed them, I wondered if there was such a thing as slow release food for tomatoes. Course there is! One feed is good for the whole season it says in big letters. What isn’t clear until you get close enough to read the small letters, each plant needs 5 or 6 of these feed clusters, so I probably haven’t bought enough. Curses.

4 – Canna you believe it? Two canna plants that I grew from seed last year but never got around to planting out. They have lurked on the vacant veg plot in their pots. They are bestirred, probably because I have been able to water them enough, see above. In a parallel universe where I have the room, I’ll plant them out soon.

5 – Tulip ‘Angelique’. A peony type, they are quite blousy but in a good way. I like them, and I gather they are reasonably perennial. When they are done flowering I intend to turf them out of here and plant them out in the garden.

6 – Rose Dr Eckener. The evening before this was a tightly wrapped bud, but keen as mustard is Dr Eckener, out he comes. It’s a rugosa type, so the flower is quite open, and the fragrance is mild, a close sniff is required, very nice though. I expect once a few more flowers are open the niff will be more noticeable.

Those are my Six, what are yours? If you’d like to join the gang, 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 fablious. For more details you can read the brief participant guide.

I will be out in the garden for large chunks of this weekend, more good weather for the next few days at least. Last weekend I found myself actually sitting down in the deckchair and relaxing. This is not on. Must try harder.

Do check in later on as new links are added during the day.

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

PS, during the week I learned via circuitous route that a frequent SoS contributor, Mala Burt, passed away recently. Not sure how or why, doesn’t matter really, condolences to her family and friends in the unlikely event they are reading this.