Six on Saturday – Chocolates

Even though it was singularly uninviting, it being damp and windy and the weekend, I had to go out into the garden this morning.  Not just because of the pressing urgency of The Propagator‘s Six on Saturday, but because if I didn’t do certain jobs a visit from the local RSPCP officer was inevitable.  So I did, with dragging teenaged feet and hunched shoulders.  Not fair.  No one cares.  Not working?  OK.

Without further ado, or attention seeking behaviour, I will get back to the task in hand.  My Six on Saturday.  The first chocolate in the box today is the amazing Salvia leucantha ‘Midnight’.   It is tender, in spite of its furry coat, and takes a while to get up the energy to flower after the winter.  Hence it has only just begun to bloom here.  In my top ten of salvias.  For some reason marzipan springs to mind.  Purple marzipan, if it doesn’t exist it should be invented forthwith!

Now for the second morsel.  The aforementioned urgent job was to replant the containers outside the front door.  They were looking, let me chose my words carefully here, shameful.  I had bought replacements, including this cyclamen, a couple of weeks ago and they had been languishing patiently for me to uphold my part of the bargain.  Cyclamen are favourites of mine and even here, in the teeth of the wind, they will continue to flower until next spring.   What do you think, raspberry parfait?

The next treat for you is a little viola, one of a mixed bunch also bought to jolly up the front of the house.  Although they have a tendency to stop flowering for a while, they always begin again just as I am thinking about chucking them out.   Somewhere beneath, I am hoping, are last year’s bulbs and corms.  Quite what these are will be as much of a surprise to me as it is to you.  I vaguely remember some crocus and perhaps Iris reticulata, oh and maybe some Jetfire.  You can’t beat a good surprise.  As for this one, I reckon it might be a mint chocolate.

Now onto a definite hard centre, apple flavoured of course.  This tree was here when we moved in. Although it is undoubtedly on dwarf rooting stock, it is still too big for our little plot.  Each year the jackdaws find the fruit before they are ripe, pecking large holes in them, knocking many to the ground in the process.  When we do get to taste one they are delicious.  As it is unlikely that those clever corvids will forget where their late summer feast is, our share in the future is likely to be minimal.

Another of our inheritances is this fuchsia.  I am fond of fuchsias, and this is a rather pleasant one.  It is not however jaw-dropping, or stunning, or incredible, or magical.  Quite pretty, that is all.   If this was one of my chocolates it would be one of the last to be eaten, perhaps a toffee, or orange cream.   However I am well aware that there are plenty of people who would be picking this one first.  You are very welcome to my orange cream, I’ll have your praline.

Lastly we have some of the plants that have been replaced by the bright young things.  They are cuphea, argyranthemum and eccremocarpus.  These would be the misshapes, the ones that failed to meet the stringent standards.  After last week’s public outcry (OK, just John) I have potted them up to over-winter somewhere more clement, perhaps the Caribbean, most likely crammed into my tiny plastic greenhouse with a zillion others.

More thanks to Mr P for making me get out of bed early on a Saturday morning, stumbling around the garden taking photos, much to the amusement of my neighbours.  Mr P has the power.