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!

cyclamen

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?

viola

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.

apple

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.

fuchsia

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.

 

 

 

A Good Day

That is exactly how it should be.  Spot on.  Today was a dictionary entry for autumn.  The essence.  Like in fairy tales and East Anglia.  New England-esque, but lacking the pretty leaves.  Dry and sunny, the low light warming our souls.  Forgive me for pressing the point, but after last week’s persistent misery it was twice as welcome.  In fact I wouldn’t complain if every day was like it.  Don’t you think about changing a thing!  Maybe a few degrees warmer once in a while, just for a  change.  But mainly the same.

You may remember that last week it was half term in this neck of the woods.   The Farm was full of the wellied and the excitable.  This week, all was calm and controlled.  Most of my day was spent rescuing the delicate and taking them to their winter snoozing ground, the greenhouse.  Here I potted them up, labelled them as accurately as I could (“Dahlia from outside the office, not the orange one” “blue” “hanging basket plant”) and lined them up in an orderly manner.  Then I planted out cyclamen.  All was well.

A very special ten minutes of my day was spent watching a goldcrest flit about the old apple trees.  I followed as it darted from branch to branch, tree to tree, at times no more than 3m away.  It was mesmerising.  This country’s smallest bird, giving this gardener the biggest thrill.

Six on Saturday – If I must

I had decided that I wasn’t going to SoS this week.  Lots to do, miserable outside, lacking motivation, Madagascar 2 on the TV, crisps in the cupboard.  However, such is the hold that The Propagator has on me, I have relented.  I am hoping that eventually he will return the incriminating photos.  Until then, let’s go!

My first picture is of an argyranthemum, rescued as a plug from local garden centre.  It has flowered all summer, even though the gardener failed to dead head regularly.  Hopefully it will survive until the spring and be even bigger and better next year.   I will have a word with the staff.

pelargonium

I have had this pelargonium for several years, found on a table of assorted plants at an open garden.  Although it has never thrived in our damp Devon air, it is doing a sterling effort of hanging on in there.

phormium

This phormium was given to me as a seedling by one of my old clients in Bristol.   She had a wonderful garden, was ambitious and imaginative.  Looking at this plant reminds me of her.  This is one of the many wonders of gardening.  The sharing and the receiving and the memories.

cherry

This is a peach tree grown from a kernel.  It hasn’t flowered yet, it is growing like a cuckoo, but the autumn colour is fabulous.  Thanks Storm Brian for leaving us a couple of leaves to admire.  So kind of you.

As I live by the sea, it is compulsory (a local bye-law) to grow at least one armeria in your garden.  This variegated form is looking quite healthy but hasn’t flowered since I bought it last year.  Good job it has such pretty foliage or I would be whispering “compost bin” in its direction.

cuphea

Lastly we have a little cuphea, which lives in a planter at the front of the house.  Soon he will be jettisoned as I have recently bought some cyclamen and violas to replace him and his straggly lobelia companions.  I’m tough, take no prisoners.  When a plant is finished, out with it.  No qualms.  Stop looking at me like that.  Is that a small tear rolling down his face?  Come on, it is the right thing to do!  OK, I might pot him up and try and over-winter him.

Once again, thanks Mr P for hosting this meme (a word I never though I would type).  Check out all the other SoSers on his website.  Another link here , if you dare ………..

Research

Half term at The Farm.  After a few quiet weeks it was full of life again.  The last horrah before the end of the season.  A case of mixed blessings.  Although I am looking forward to overhauling and juggling and suchlike, which can’t be started when they are busy, I do like so see the place buzzing.   I enjoy talking to the guests, and love to see the kids so free and full of fun, enjoying meeting the animals and learning about where their food comes from.  It was especially fine today as a “frequent flyer” was staying with her family, someone who I hit it off with from the first.  Sometimes friendships are like that.  She loves dahlias and we are planning a Thelma and Louise style trip to Cornwall to visit the National Collection.  When I say Thelma and Louise we are not expecting to murder anyone, just drive a car and say yee-haw and wear sunglasses or whatever they did.  I haven’t actually seen the film, research may be necessary.

It was wet again, as this aster can testify.

Tables

Today I visited a cafe that I have never previously been to or even knew existed.  In that cafe I was meeting a woman who I have never met before, but I was pretty certain she was real.  Ninety percent certain.  After taking my order the man behind the counter noticed me peering around the room.  “Is everything OK?” he asked.  “Yes” I replied “I’m meeting someone here and I don’t know what she looks like”.  “Oh”  he said at a loss for anything more constructive.  I continued “But I know that she is not a man or a dog and as they are the only inhabitants of your fine establishment I can only guess that I am here first”.  “Great” he said “You now have the advantage”. “What advantage would that be and why would I need one?” I wondered, but didn’t say out loud to avoid overt rudeness. “You can choose exactly where to sit” he explained.  “Perhaps he is a mind reader, I had better be careful” I thought.  “Stop thinking” I thought again.  “I see, and where would you recommend?” I asked looking around the almost empty room. “Well our most popular table is the one behind the man eating the enormous bacon buttie” he explained “people will clear that table of dirty dishes just to sit there”.  “But surely that man would be irritated if, bearing in mind there is a room full of vacant tables, I decided to sit right next to him”.  At this the dining fellow looked up and gave a slight nod of agreement, unable to speak due to his sandwich eating activity.  This apparently hallowed place didn’t look particularly special to me, maybe I was missing something.  It was decided. “I will sit over in the corner, away from the window, diagonally opposite the breakfasting gentleman.”  And so I did.  I have always been wilful.

My mystery companion arrived moments later and I recognised her as such instantly.  She was very nice.  We had two coffees and many words.  This event may happen again, but next time I will let her choose the table.

This photo of a self-seeded fennel has absolutely nothing to do with coffee, cafes or tables.  However I do not have a picture of any of the above so it will have to suffice.

Sheltering

More of the same today.   We slipped and slided like a muddy Torvill and Dean, digging up self-seeded ferns and throwing them on to the Bonfire That Never Burns.  They will be quite safe there.  During a particularly heavy spell of rain I sheltered under a Paulownia.  It was even more painful than being in the open.  Anticipating when the huge drips that were falling through the gaps in the canopy would land on my head was quite disturbing.

This afternoon I decided that I couldn’t face putting on my sodden waterproofs, dripping gloves, wringing hat, squelching boots and doing it all over again.  So I went home.