#SixOnSaturday – Six things happening in my garden this week

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

My goodness, this is getting hard. Another heatwave, another week of no rain, another week of a hosepipe ban, another week of carrying watering cans up and down the garden. Wherever I look in the garden I see plants showing signs of distress. Added to that, apart from watering, there’s very little one can do in the garden at the moment because it’s too hot to be out there for long and the soil is too dry to plant or sow. On a more positive note, our new potting shed will be installed this week on what was the site of our old, leaky garage, demolished a month ago.

One – Despite the water level being very low, the plants in the pond actually seem quite happy. However it is revealing that a lot of sludge, chiefly dead leaves, has collected at the bottom. I need to try to clear it at some point without disturbing any of the pond’s inhabitants.

Two – I’m hoping this sedum will bring me ‘Autumn Joy’. Just look at that parched earth around it.

Three – Our front garden is south facing and really hot, as you can tell from the parched grass which was lush freshly laid turf last autumn. The plan is to have a low hedge containing a mixture of lavender and rosemary. The rosemary seems to have other ideas but I’m nervous of cutting anything back at the moment.

Four – We have miniature climbing French beans producing miniature beans. Bless them for trying…

Five – We have a squash starting to ripen and another small one which unfortunately has split. I’m leaving it for the time being but I’ve started to remove most of the other foliage from the plant.

Six – Sums up the gardening experience at the moment, doesn’t it?

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.

#SixOnSaturday – Six things happening in my garden this week

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.