I’m baaaack! In fact we came home a day early as the weather was a bit crap Devon way. Yesterday was spent tutting at the state of the garden. I mowed the lawn, which helped, but I’m really cheesed off with the bindweed, which this year seems especially rampant. I may also have overdone it with the whole growing things from seed thing this year. I just had too many small plants in a precarious and already neglected state when I went on hols. Now I just have dried out husks. I might go cold turkey next year and grow nothing from seed. Oh, and don’t get me started on the dahlias. Anyhow, enough whining, time for Six on Saturday. Six things, in the garden, on a Saturday. Could be anything, you decide. Join in!
Here are my Six for this week.
1. Osteospermum. Carefully nurtured through the winter in the greenhouse, these two survivors from last summer are bushing out and flowering nicely in one of my patio planters.
2. Phlox, purple. I bought this as a smallish plant last year, it didn’t get to more than 18 inches. Compact, I thought, nice. This year it is three feet tall and needs supporting.
3. Aster frikartii ‘Mönch’. I might need to move this, it is now largely hidden behind a very vigorous clump of cape figwort. Still, it flowers well and can be seen poking it’s nose above the surrounding foliage.
4. Verbascum ‘Snowy Spires’. Grown from seed last year, I think, I planted a couple in what looked briefly like gaps. Ha, not likely! No sign of the other one, but this one is flowering in a desperate last gasp attempt to propagate itself into a less crowded spot. Not in this garden, sunshine!
5. Allium ‘Summer Drummer’. Finally! Meh, I’m over them now. Height is the only thing they have going for them, like a lanky purple sensation.
6. Echinops. I really need to split this clump, it is taking over a bit.
Those are my Six for this week, what are yours? You know the drill, publish and pop a link below in the comments.
I’ll be back next weekend for another #SixOnSaturday.
The Propagator 
Morning all!
Back after a couple of weeks – hope everyone’s well and your gardens are blooming! https://peerlessgardening.wordpress.com/2021/08/14/six-on-saturday-14-8-2021/
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Briefly, on the run, behind schedule, a day behind you all – in Hawaii – here is my look-back at the week: https://anirishgardener.wordpress.com/2021/08/08/more-than-expected/
I’ll catch up with all you posts later!
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I love how I get a lesson in new flowers from you every week! Those Verbascum ‘Snowy Spires’ are amazing! The other plant I’d like to add to my garden is the Echinops. I just need to figure out where to put them …
I’m not quite as late this week 🙂 Here’s my link:
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Fabulous blog!
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A lovely six! After a rainy week, visit me in Savannah GA, http://www.jayneingeorgia.com
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The verbascum Snow Spires is a beautiful specimen. I love all the different shapes in your garden. Creates such interest. I have not participated in a while because I took a break from blogging, but glad to see you are still hosting this link-up. Always enjoyed it so much. https://angiethehappygardener.com/blog/six-on-saturday-jewel-tones
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I can’t see you giving up seed sowing, Jon!! Hard to be economical with it sometimes, though, although I have tried to cut down a little, and am certainly learning what not to bother with. Shan’t be bothering with Summer Drummer again either which were just stupidly tall for their little heads, and although I have seen foliage none of them flowered again after their first year. MY six are in the Coop this week https://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com/2021/08/07/six-in-the-coop-on-saturday/ Thanks for hosting
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Starting plants from seed is the sign of an optimist. So much can happen between planting and admiring the mature plant. Like squirrels. So many of my baby oak trees were harvested by squirrels before they were quite 10′ tall in early summer. I had assumed they were safely big enough with a set or two of leaves. Such is life. Sorry for your husks, but that is the price gardeners pay for taking off to enjoy themselves. Its in the contract, don’t you know? You certainly found some beauties to grow this week, so there was a bright spot. Hang in there, spring is only a few months away. Here are my 6 for the week. I’m still fixated on ferns: https://woodlandgnome.wordpress.com/2021/08/07/six-on-saturday-lady-ferns/
Stay well,
WG
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Welcome home! What a garden to come home to. Here’s mine: https://stoneyknob.wordpress.com/2021/08/07/sos-the-wild-life-part-2/
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Love the pinks and purples! This week it’s my SIL’s garden: https://dameeleanorhull.wordpress.com/2021/08/07/six-from-my-sister-in-laws-garden/
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The Verbascum is very pretty. There was yellow Verbascum blattaria (moth mullein) in the park and it was the prettiest weed, perhaps flower of any sort, I’d ever seen! I went back a few times to find the seeds, but too many other weeds had taken over.
https://lisasgardenadventureinoregon.blogspot.com/2021/08/six-on-saturday-august-7-2021.html
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But you need to beware of the mullein moth caterpillars! They can strip a plant bare in no time.
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Nice! I am having trials keeping the smaller seedlings hydrated here. Love the Verbascum and I wish for some Asters like that. One of the plants I miss, Oh well. Thanks for hosting https://theshrubqueen.com/2021/08/07/six-on-saturday-hot-summer-color/
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The Osteospermum have done you proud for bring them on through the worst winter, ace 🙂 The Asters great – something I need to get sometime bringing back those plants long lost!
My offering for this week
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Don’t give up on the seeds! What can beat that kick of seeing them come up? I mean, I get what you’re saying about too many small things, and your growing conditions are v different from ours, but still. It’s like a drug — better than coffee, in my opinion (I don’t drink coffee).
That snowy spire is beautiful, as is the phlox (wow!), and I also have osteospermum (or dimorphotheca as mine seems to be called now). It’s orange though, so not to everyone’s taste 🙂 https://onewordhere.blogspot.com/2021/08/six-on-saturday-2021-08-07-southern.html
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Welcome home. Sorry about the dearly departed seedlings. I love asters but sadly so do my bunnies. The verbascum is quite lovely. https://pruneplantsow.wordpress.com/2021/08/07/sixonsaturday-august-7th-is-that-a-hint/
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Wow! Excessive bindweed must be an international annoyance this year. In some areas of my wooded area, it thinks it is a ground cover. But your purple osteospermum is stunning. There are a few more purples here https://aftereden.blog/2021/08/07/six-on-saturday-7-august-2021/.
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Sorry our weather let you down! I’m glad I’m not the only one with bindweed that is rampant everywhere. I really must try some phlox, I’m seeing them on so many blogs and like them very much, just hope they like my soil.
My six are here http://www.leadupthegardenpath.com/
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Hello everyone.
I really want to get some phlox now, its a fantastic plant. And, don’t take this the wrong way Mr Propagator, but I’m pleased to hear about your bindweed. Every week your garden looks fantastic, and so it’s good to know I’m not the only one with bindweed popping up all over the place. Here is my collection for the week
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If you grow just one plant from seed, make it Tithonia. I featured mine last week, they don’t disappoint and if you bring them on in pots, they can be brutish enough to avoid being eaten by slugs. I’ve only just discovered Phlox, they are wonderful, I like ‘Natascha’. This week mine include three tall plants: http://kasmaty.blogspot.com/2021/08/sixonsaturday-reaching-for-sky.html
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That post could have been written about my garden, bindweed, pots and pots of lanky seedlings and dahlias battered by wind, rain, slugs and snails. Cold turkey sounds great but will we remember next year when all the catalogues arrive?!
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Welcome back – at least you weren’t camping….I hope! Here’s my six, trying hard not to mention the weather and failing https://n20gardener.com/2021/08/07/six-on-saturday-harvest-thoughts/ and despite my lack of enthusiasm for dahlias I do have one to show.
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Grow nothing from seed! For a whole year! Never gonna happen. Overcrowding is disastrous for so many good plants, mainly because the slugs do their thing unseen. The alternative, less plants, is even worse. Here’s mine: https://wp.me/p6bCCa-2Xk
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I have Echinops which self seed, need full sun for best performance and color and attract the bees. You don’t have to be on holiday to find a mess. Just turn your back. The bindweed is gone all Monstrosa. Of which I picked up from someone’s green bin and have in several placed in nice clear vases and outdoors. It’ll be coming inside for the winter as the orchids have gone all decrepit no longer worth the tender love. One phlox is not flowering in the shady part and gone all grew with mildew. Must transplant. Daylilies coming to their conclusion. Sedum preparing to be next bee attraction. A must have for the fall. Autumn Joy.
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I really love the texture and shape of the echinops and feel I must try and source one. Here’s mine for this week. https://pruebatten.com/2021/08/07/sos-7721/
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The individual flowers of the verbascum are very pretty.
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Returning to a jungle after holidaying is a shock to the system! The phlox is lovely (I finally managed to purchase a plant from the southern parts of Australia), as is the Osteo and the Verbascum. Here is the link to my Six: https://hairbellsandmaples.com/2021/08/07/six-on-saturday-w32-2021-a-hint-of-spring/
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Good morning. I hope most of the holiday was good, I did think of your family + all the extras when the rain was bucketing down but I remember holidays making sandcastles in the rain and good fun it was. 🤥🤨
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What’s great about this series is knowing what is in flower now in other people’s gardens. I think I’m going to try out some Aster and Echinops. Here are my #SixOnSaturday for this week: https://chezwoodland.blogspot.com/2021/08/six-on-saturday-7th-august-2021.html
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Over sowing and pricking out is a terrible problem for us poor addicts. I’m not sure that there is a cure!
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Greetings from Welsh Wales where I am standing in for one of our newer residents. Or rather sitting in at the mo as, with her usual aplomb, she demanded that I look out for her post at 7am and “do what is needed”. Then she didn’t post until 8am! So I’m now doing the deed and providing a link to her Six-of-the-day, which can be located at https://offtheedgegardening.com/2021/08/07/six-on-saturday-awol/.
That done I’ll get back to reading through the adventures of others as I defer, yet again, returning with my own. Cheers.
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Rhody is included . . . by popular demand.
African daisies, it seems, are less resilient than they seem to be. Well, I suppose winter gets quite cold there too. Is the old formerly common ground cover form still around? I know it was shabby, but I sort of like it because it was the first African daisy I got acquainted with.
Phlox looks great. I should try more of this. I had never grown it before just because I never actually met it before. Then, it mysteriously showed up in one of our landscapes. It happens to perform well here.
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Morning. Not woken up properly and thought you wrote just back from holiday and moved the lawn. I thought wow that’s an achievement for August. That’s a lovely Verbascum and superb photo’s of the a Alium and Echinopsis. Here’s my six
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Welcome back. That Osteospermum is a beauty and your Aster is a little ahead of mine. My dahlias are proving problematic this year – not a flower bud to be seen and a few have been savaged by the slimy ones https://onemanandhisgardentrowel.wordpress.com/2021/08/07/six-on-saturday-7-august-2021/
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Verbascum gives very pretty flowers but in my opinion not enough flower spikes … I only have one in bloom this summer. You must have plenty of things to do in your garden… good luck!
Here is my Six: https://fredgardenerblog.wordpress.com/2021/08/07/six-on-saturday-07-08-21/
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I like the Verbascum and self seeding seems to be in their nature. I’ve found that they do pop up at the front of the border in the way that foxgloves do and need removing/relocating. Sorry to hear of your garden losses while you were away. I do like the phlox too, but I’ve never understood the apparent lovely scent they are supposed to have. Smells like curry plant to me.
Here’s my Six for this week
https://www.hortusbaileyana.co.uk/2021/08/the-start-of-august-in-garden.html
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You are definitely on trend with that Verbascum, all the mags have ‘designer’ gardens featuring these. Strange how they don’t mention problems with over crowding of problems with small plants dying off in pots. My commiserations on those Jon. Here are my Six: https://noellemace.blogspot.com/2021/08/six-on-saturday-7-august-2021.html
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The Osteospermum is gorgeous. Just so pretty. Here are my six – signs of spring down here!
https://basia329.wordpress.com/2021/08/07/six-on-saturday-07-08-21/
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Moring all. Hope the weekend gardening will be good for you.
Welcome back, a chara! I’ve a question about Aster Mönch on my post today… Does the horticulture industry release seeds of AGM plents? I’m at a loss to find same anywhere.
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