You’ll be glad to hear I survived my shenanigans in the Lake District. It was hilly, long, hot and very tough. I had some blister issues which slowed me right down towards the end, but I finished the full 100 kilometres in 18h45. It was worth it for the views…

What with that and travel back down south, no gardening was contemplated never mind attempted last weekend. This weekend we are at a festival all day Sunday (31 degrees, no shade!), so what gardening I can do this weekend will have to fit into Saturday. I want to get the irrigation up and running, and I have dahlias that really need planting. Oh, and the mid-summer wisteria prune is overdue. And the virginia creeper badly needs a trim (it is growing 2 feet INTO the bathroom upstairs). Er, and the lawn needs mowing. Deadheading. Supporting. Weeding. Watering. Sigh.

While I fail to get most of that done, let’s do Six on Saturday. Six things, in the garden, on a Saturday. Could be anything, you decide!

Here are my Six for this week.

1 – Telekia, flowering this time.

2 – Monarda ‘variety?’. I planted three of these, decent sized plants all, and the slugs had a bit of a go at them. They have recovered some poise, as you can see, plenty of flowers now. I’m hoping they make a decent clump over time. I grew monarda from seed once, I don’t remember the flowers being as large as these, they’re the size of a decent apple, quite large.

3 – Potentilla fruticosa. This is one of my favourite shrubs in the garden. It quietly does it’s thing, not getting excessively big, and flowers its socks off for months. It just needs a light prune in the spring, the work of moments.

4 – Helenium ‘Sahin’s Early Flowerer’. I’ve done a bad thing. I divided small clumps of these, perhaps prematurely, and then didn’t really water them, so I think I will get little return from that. We’ll see. Fortunately, there was one clump I forgot about, in a pot on the patio. That is just starting to flower.

5 – Clematis jackmanii. I forgot I’d planted this, intended to be a companion to my very vigorous C. ‘Rebecca’. This year I think it has flowered more strongly than becky.

6 – Verbascum ‘Snowy spires’. Another plant I forgot I planted. I grew this one from seed last year, one of the few to escape the apocalypse of neglect in my greenhouse. I almost pulled it out as a suspected weed. I’m glad I didn’t, it’s flowering now, it’s rather pretty.

Those are my Six, 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 triffic. For more details you can read the brief participant guide.

I hope you manage to get some time in the garden this weekend, take care in the heat.

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