Six on Saturday. Six things, in the garden, on a Saturday. Simples!

Here are my Six for this week.

1 – Fuchsia ‘Riccartoni’. Bought to train against fences and walls, I have a few of this one now. This plant is in a container with roses and clematis along my side wall. It didn’t do much last year, but this year it has grown several feet. I have failed to control it so it is flopping about all over the place. I should train it as the new growth may survive the winter better closer to the house wall.

2 – Phygelius/Cape fuchsia/Cape figwort ‘Funfare orange’. Not a fanfare, implying bugles and trumpets, no, a funfare, someone tooting the fun horn, as it very much were. I bought one plant last year, it has gone crazy this year. I also took one cutting last year which rooted easily and which has also grown well. I can see I will need to keep an eye on them, make sure they don’t take over.

3 – Unruly rose. I have lost control of the front garden, including the two big planters. This rose, ‘Generous Gardener’ has put out two good new stems, which a more diligent gardener would have tied in long ago. I keep meaning to do it, but somehow I never had the string to hand. There are even flowers at the end of the stem, visible mainly to the insects that live in the cracks in the pavers on the drive.

4 – Crocosmia, basic one. I think I grew these from seed I snaffled from an autumn garden visit a few years back. There are two clumps (rapidly becoming one larger clump) in my patio border. They look well established now, and their sword like leaves are a pleasing sign of summer to come, but then they get obscured by the loosestrife behind and the rudbeckia to the fore. I should move them really. Despite all the obstacles I spotted these flower spikes leaning gamely through the competition.

5 – Begonia, red’un. So red, in fact, that my phone camera has issues capturing it properly. This begonia is one i bought, God, years ago, at least 5. It lived in one of the patio planters, minding its own business among some very perennial tulip bulbs. Every year it came back after dying down over winter, the planter being just warm enough to keep it alive without any special treatment. During some repairs, I emptied the planter, deciding to bin the tulips and try something new. I almost didn’t see the begonia tuber, but spotted it as it was going into the wheelbarrow for disposal. I took pity on it, chucking it in a pot and leaving it in the greenhouse over winter. It lives.

6 – Loosestrife/rudbeckia combo. I am partial to a purple/yellow combination. The loosestrife is much taller than the rudbeckia, but is obliging by flopping over to a more accommodating altitude.

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 fab. For more details you can read the brief participant guide.

Have a super gardening weekend. I need to try to wrest some level of control back. The bindweed is being a massive pain in the arse, the grass insists on growing and not mowing itself, and I haven’t deadheaded anything in weeks. Sigh.

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