Six on Saturday is a weekly meme originally hosted by The Propagator but now in the tender care of Jim at Garden Ruminations.
It’s now over a month since we had any rain here in Berkshire. I’m writing this on Thursday as I’m away for the weekend and, as of now, there is no rain in the forecast until at least next Tuesday. In addition there’s now a hosepipe ban in force in our area. Thank you, Thames Water. I’m sure I’m not the only one thinking about changes we might have to make if hot dry summers are here to stay.
On the bright side, our leaky old eyesore of a garage has finally been demolished and the space prepared so a lovely potting shed can take its place.
The garden is really suffering but I’ve managed to come up with these six:
One – I spotted this flower crab spider on the water mint in our pond doing horrible things to a bumble bee it had captured.
Two – The lower water level in the pond is revealing a large population of pond snails. I’m finding them surprisingly mesmerising to watch move around the pond. At the moment they’re mainly feeding on algae and other dead matter in the water although this one seems to have taken a liking to one of the pond plants.
Three – A lovely butter yellow nemesia standing up surprisingly well to the heat and smelling divine.
Four – Pennisetum doing its wavy thing.
Five – Herb fennel loving the sunny weather (unlike most other things in the garden)
Six – Another dahlia has started to flower despite the parched conditions in our south facing front garden. This one is ‘Bayou’.
Do check out the posts of other participants by following the links in the comments section of Jim’s post. If you fancy taking part yourself but don’t know where to start, here’s the participant’s guide.
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My dahlias are so slow this year, they are usually twice the size by now and some haven’t flowered yet. Bayou is lovely. I’m sure I would be mesmerised by the water snails too, sounds like you have a very healthy pond. Enjoy your time away.
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that spider photo is amazing! I have no sense of smell, and it might be a weird thing to say, that’s it’s never occured to me that Nemesia might have an odour. I’ll be dragging my wife around the garden asking which, if any, of mine smell!
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Poor bumblebee, but I do like the look of that spider. I observed a pond skater eating a young cinnamon bug today, and then moments later I spotted multiple pond skaters feasting on a wasp. Had never seen that before!
The nemesia is looking lovely – one I’ll need to have a closer look at for next year.
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