Category: Six On Saturday

Six on Saturday is a weekly meme originally hosted by The Propagator but now in the tender care of Jim at Garden Ruminations.

Heatwave + drought + hosepipe ban = unhappy gardener. The garden is really suffering and it crossed my mind to skip this week because there’s so little that’s flourishing. However, gardeners don’t give up that easily do they? There’s a yellow theme to my six this week. (It may be a brown theme next week if we don’t get any rain…)

One – One plant doing really well at the moment is Rudbeckia laciniata ‘Herbstsonne’. I’ll have to think about acquiring more next year although I’d probably go for a different colour. Those teasels are photobombing again.

Two – The coreposis have been struggling a bit but with regular watering and deadheading they’re hanging on in there.

Three – Courgette flowers are always cheery even if the plants have produced few fruits despite lots of watering. They never really managed to get established and have just sulked. Who can blame them?

Four – It tells you something about the change in our weather when even Choisya ternata ‘Sundance’, which was in the garden when we moved here over fifteen years ago, is looking unhappy.

Five – Marsh marigold flowering again in the pond which is now looking more like a sludge-filled puddle.

Six – I did say the theme might change from yellow to brown next week…

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.

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.