Six on Saturday – Pretty Maids All in a Row

Posted byofftheedgegardeningPosted inNew Chez Nous, Six on Saturday, Welsh WalesTags:, , , ,

It has been a fortnight since I last reported and I am worried that you are expecting great things of me. I am sure you do not wish to hear excuses, if necessary I can come up with a baker’s dozen, so I will just say “these things can not be rushed, I am an artist and I must wait for my muse to inspire me”. Which of course is bunkum, but worth a try. What I present you with here is a particularly dull Six on Saturday. Apologies, but perhaps you could read it just before bedtime to aid a good night’s sleep. If stimulation is what you are looking for, pop over to Mr Dynamo himself, The Prop, and find out what himself and his acolytes have been up to. Right, let us get this over with.

To begin, a new border, the first. It is north facing. I may call it The North Border, although this is unlikely. At present it is pathetic and feeble, pretty maids all in a row, but it is a start and the hydrangeas especially needed to have their feet in the soil once more. Talking of soil, I am pleasantly surprised in that department. A few inches of nice dark stuff, then a more red sandy clay type. Not a fag packet, Gregg’s carrier bag or bit of rusty metal in sight. I must get a pH testing kit. I was asking Jim a couple of weeks ago about a small camellia to suit and I would rather not grow it in a pot.

In the new North Border (working title) I planted a cutting from our wonderful red hydrangea in Ilfracombe (above not looking very red), Hydrangea aspera ‘Hot Chocolate’, Impatiens omeiana and Begonia ‘Claret Jug’. All a bit deciduous so in the middle went Pseudopanax ‘Moas Toes’, which is heading for the stars. I’m thinking about nipping out the top to encourage some horizontal growth, any thoughts? I will wait til spring so you have time to think about it.

Much as I would love a hand crafted artisan compost heap, I am realist enough to accept that a dalek is as good as it is going to get for the foreseeable. This is enough to make me very happy. The evidence of border excavation is nearby. As tidy a pile as an untidy pile can be.

I had bulbs to plant. I had no pot to plant them in. So I made a mini bed and planted out Rodgeria ‘Heavenly Gill’. If ever a plant should not be in a pot, surely it is a rodgersia. Hopefully it will thrive here, it has struggled up to now.

Then in with the bulbs of Lilium ‘Forever Susan’. This must be my five hundredth attempt to find the real thing. Fingers crossed for next year. And yes I did cover the bulbs with soil.

Some traditions must not be ignored. The violas are doing very nicely.

Your trial is over, you have stayed the course. I can’t promise much more excitement next time. I can promise I will try. Stay safe my friends.

24 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – Pretty Maids All in a Row”

  3. Interesting. Being interested, I Binged (don’t Google) that Rogersia to see what it looked like. Having got thru advice to change my search criteria to something more temporal, I found myself directed to a blog called “Ontheedgegardening”. So whilst I am none the wiser as to Roger, I did enjoy reading about your (I presume) younger sibling’s indiscretions.

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  4. That sounds like a really nice border with lots of lovely foliage (I looked a few up!). The Hydrangea aspera ‘Hot Chocolate’ with its dark purple leaves looks very enticing. Great to get the composting going too, even if it means a Dalek in the garden.

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  10. Pseudopanax made me pause and think. I suppose that several of them can live here and where winters are cooler. So, they might not be so far fetched in your garden. I just think of the genus as something that prefers milder climates. I only see it in the Los Angeles region.
    Dalek made the pause also, as I tried to remember the common name. Oops.
    Fag packet? . . . , Okay, a brief pause, but I figured it out.

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      1. That is such a weird family (the Pseudopanax). There is an aralia that comes up in the middle of the road below one of my vacant parcels that a colleague told me is a native Pseudopanax. I believed him of course. However, Pseudopanax are NOT native here, and the exotics are uncommon and mostly houseplants. It is an Aralia californica, and does not resemble any of the Pseudopanax. Anyway, I think of Pseudopanax as aralias, but the many different aralias within the many different species are all so extremely variable, and I can not keep them all straight.

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