Another month bites the dust. It is dark of a morning and of an evening, and will get even darker in the evening as the clocks go back here tonight. This mainly represents a practical curtailing of the hours available to the gardener, although I have been known to be out weeding with a headtorch on. I have bulbs to plant out, but I suspect this weekend will mainly involve re-painting Mrs P’s office a fetching shade of purple (really it’s pink, she is in denial). While I’m on my knees sanding the skirting board, you can do Six On Saturday. Six things, in the garden, on a Saturday. It’s easy, join in!

Here are my Six…

1 – Limited bulb progress. Last weekend I levered myself off the sofa for a while and got some bulbs planted. Specifically, 100 allium ‘Purple Sensation’ were dealt with, leaving 650 tulips and daffs still in their box. I cheated and planted most of the alliums in pots. I put about 20 each in big tubs like these, they are on either side of the patio steps. I did plant some in the ground, but was disappointed to find my auger drill bit, my bulb planting secret weapon, was next to useless. It stirred my soil, but didn’t remove any, leaving me to delve in with the trowel. I gave up after a tedious half hour, parking the remaining allium bulbs 4 or 5 to a 2L pot, which I will transplant in those groups to the borders later in the winter.

2 – Amalanchier ‘Robin Hill’. I know, I recently included a leaf from this tree, but the whole tree is now quite orange, worthy of a spot of its own.

3 – Canna seed pod. One of my plants is leaning obligingly, making the seed pods an easy subject for a quick snap. Their cousins on non-leaning plants are 8′ in the air.

4 – Peat free bonanza. With a vague notion of planting more bulbs, I popped to the garden centre to get some compost. Peat free, these days, of course. I was pleased to find that they had loads in stock, and several brands too. I used MiracleGro earlier this year, seems to do very well, but I’m also trying SylvaGrow, about which I have heard good things, and Heart Of Eden, about which I know nuffink. They had New Horizon too, but I’m never buying that again, absolute rubbish. It was raining when I got home, no bulbs were interred.

5 – Mahonia. This plant has stayed exactly where I put it back in the summer, in a 20L tub on the patio. I have just the spot for it in the shady corner, but I think it is too small just now. I may plant it out when everything else has died/been cut back.

6 – Japanese anemone. I was at Burford Garden Centre, or the Regional Centre for Removal of Cash from the Pockets of Willing Victims. I was there to meet Granny’s Garden, collecting #4 child who had stayed the night with them. We arrived early to allow a little idle wandering in the plant section (for a garden centre, it mostly sells things other than plants). I was hoping for bargains but at Burford, “bargain” prices on end of season plants merely brings them down to normal prices. I bought a bunch of perennials to plug a persistent gap in my sunny border. Although pink, this japanese anemone variety is allegedly well behaved. Mind you, it still says “easy to divide in the spring” on the label, probably a euphemism for DIVIDE IT OR ELSE, FOOL.

Those are my Six for this week, what are yours? If you’d like to have a go, 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 super. For more details you can read the brief participant guide.

I hope you have a productinve gardening weekend, don’t forget to check back later as more links get added during the day.

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