PotsandPlots

Sad news this week for all SixOnSaturday participants. Curator, Jim’s wife, Sue, passed away. Best wishes to him and his family. I’ve only been part of the SixOnSaturday crew for a couple of months, but it’s an amazing community he’s created, and I’m grateful to him for allowing me to see my garden in a totally different light. I hope his garden and the garden sharing he fosters bring him some comfort at this terrible time.

SixOnSaturday is curated by Jim at Garden Ruminations, and you can find the participation guidelines here.

1. It perhaps feels appropriate to open with this white camellia that is now in full bloom. Jim has a host of camellias in his garden, while I just have this one, left to me by my mum and dad. It came in a pot, but I have since planted it in the garden. I didn’t really know what I was doing at the time, but it seems to be doing ok.

2. Just below the camellia is this plant, which I think is an omphalades (in true PotsandPlots tradition, the label is long gone). It sits alongside a very similarly coloured brunnera, and may need moving after this year as it is at risk of being crowded out.

3. The three plants above form part of the garden’s best view at the moment. Here it is from across my tulips on the decking, or through the acer that grows at the top of the flower bed.

4. Did somebody say acers? Two in pots that came from my parents, and another I found growing in a very strange spot in my front garden. There were two of them, planted a foot apart from each other, underneath a huge wegelia (which is just coming into bud, and will feature in a SixOnSaturday very soon).

My dad and I replanted them in the back garden. I’m still not sure they’re brilliantly placed – the one not in shot, is growing under my amelanchier and is rather cramped. The one in this picture has to be regularly pruned back to avoid swamping the decking.

5. Talking of acers, I have another that is now fully in leaf. You can’t tell from this pitcure that it’s a low growing variety, nor that its horizontal spread has completely filled its space. There’s a path that runs down the side of the garden, and now that my children aren’t of an age where they run up and down it, the tree has claimed it for its own.

6. In a weird way, the path is one of my favourite parts of the garden. I don’t really look after it, and the leaf mulch that collects means that all sorts of things grow there including this yellow archangel.

It’s been there for years, and hasn’t been a problem, as it grows, looking very pretty, between the path and the wall. While identifying it for this post, I learn that it’s invasive and must not be disposed of in green waste nor are you allowed to plant it in the wild.

Now I’m in a quandry. Obviously I’m not about to take any of it anywhere, but suddenly this plant I’ve enjoyed for years looks a whole lot more sinister. Gardening is a continuing education!