It probably hasn’t escaped your notice that it’s been hot this week. My west-facing front garden had three watering visits daily: one first thing, one just as it gets really hot, around 2pm, and another in the evening when the sun is low in the sky. This has just about kept my hydrangeas from burning to a crisp.
I’ve been struck this week by how lucky I am to have my garden space. I have a shady rear garden, and being able to escape into it has been a godsend. Being able to sit out after dark, feeling the air cool down, and my body with it, has been a vital part of the day.
I’m lucky, too, that I have been able to foster biodiversity. Even including the slugs, I guess. I’ve come to enjoy my midnight jaunts, removing them from favoured plants. Even if sometimes they sneak back later at night and undo my good work.
The creature highlight, which sadly, I don’t have pictures for because they don’t sit still long enough, is the couple of leaf-cutter bees that have taken a liking to my succulents. It’s not easy to see exactly what they’re doing, but they’ve bored little holes in the soil, which I assume they line with the leaves they carry in with them.
SixOnSaturday is curated by Jim at Garden Ruminations, and you can find the participation guidelines here.
1. Last week I promised you a sea holly, so here it is. I love the heads of these, even if they are spiky. Particularly, how bee-friendly they are. I have a few more varieties dotted around, but I moved quite a few of them this year, so they aren’t flowering very impressively.
2. A little pot of serendipity. (Actually, it’s quite big.) The edge of this terracotta pot is broken, but I stuck in a couple of spare sedum plants I had with some erigeron karvinskianus. The photo doesn’t do it justice, but I’ve placed the pot towards the bottom of the garden where it looks nice, all jumbled together. Even the oxalis, which is usually a pain to remove, adds something.
3. Above that pot, in my beehive planter, is this metal pot filled with calibrachoa, nemesia and a fuchsia, which looks great in the late evening sunshine.
4. Talking of late evening sunshine. Here’s some more, shining through honesty seedheads.
5. I thought I’d taken a note of the name of this newly added scabious, but it seems not. It’s a beautiful, deep red, almost black colour.
6. Switching the evening sun for morning in this picture of my acanthus spires. Again, my photography skills are lacking – my son starts GCSE photography next year, so maybe he’ll soon be able to teach me the basics! The light and the way the spires and fronds of wild grass swayed in the breeze made this an idyllic morning moment. Another reason to be thankful for my garden.
That’s it for this week. See you next time, and thanks for looking at my #SixonSaturday
PotsandPlots 
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