PotsandPlots

Another week, another SixOnSaturday post. I’ve been really enjoying these – ok, I’ve only done three, so not exactly a veteran, but until now, I’ve never made such a concerted effort to look closely at my garden to see how it’s changing day by day and week by week.

We had some let-up in the rain on Tuesday and Wednesday (the latter being glorious), and I was able to spend several hours starting to get things in order after the winter. A fair amount of hacking down occurred, it must be said. I’ve also prepared the way for a small nature pond and have been planning what plants to put around it.

1: The Aforementioned Hacking. I cut a few of the longer stems out of some cornus plants I have in the front garden. I want to stick these branches through the chipper, but they’re a lovely deep red colour, so for now I pushed them into a pot, to give a bit of colour to the bare pebbledashed expanse of our garage. The grey slab skies and pouring rain, haven’t really done the colour justice.

2: Shortcut to Mushrooms. While rooting around at the back of a flower bed, I found a clump of mushrooms, and then another and then another. It was immediately enchanted and thrilled, and then had a moment where I feared it might be honey fungs – (it was near an old half-dead fatsia). A quick Google told me that it wasn’t, and then I returned to take photos and check it with my Seek app. Apparently, it’s a mica cap.

3: What a difference a week makes! There was only one (maybe two) of these out this time last week; now I’ve got a whole basket full of them. Sadly, the irises behind are starting to go over.

4: I used to think Euphorbia were boring, but as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to admire the structure they give a flowerbed and the vivid colours they can display. Especially in the rain. I have some deep red ones in the same bed, but they’re not photoworthy yet.

5: More lovely foliage in the rain. My heavenly bamboo (Nandina Domestica). One of my book group has a big one of these in a pot outside their front door, and I wanted one of my own. It’s a joy all year round.

6: A little gallery of primula. I have mostly yellow ones growing in the garden (including some nice candelabra ones I bought at fair expense from Wisley that then reverted the following year), but there are a couple of splashes of colour too.

And that’s it. Another busy growing week in the garden. I’ll keep looking as we head into March and see what new things arrive for next week’s post.