This is my first attempt at a Six on Saturday (also first attempt at a blog!). It’s all plants this week
My first plant is Schizostylis coccinea ‘Ice Maiden’ (I think we’re supposed to call it Hesperantha coccinea now). I have a three varieties of Schizostylis in my garden, all in various shades of pink. I found this one at a local garden centre a couple of weeks ago and have eagerly awaited the first flowers. It’s very nearly white! Just a touch of pink.
Number two is Begonia sutherlandii. I bought some as small plugs back in April and they have flowered non-stop ever since.
My third choice is Salvia patens. I haven’t grown this for many years and had forgotten what a beautiful colour it is. It’s taken a while to start flowering but is well worth the wait. 
Number four is another blue flower – Ipomoea tricolour ‘Heavenly Blue’. I sowed the seeds quite late as the plants don’t like the cold and have planted them to grow through many of my climbers. It’s a shame the leaves don’t last. The photo doesn’t do justice to the colour!
A couple of weeks ago I went to Picton Garden and nursery where they hold the National Collection of Michaelmas Daisies. It’s a beautiful garden and, needless to say, I came away with a couple (maybe slightly more) of plants. This is a photo of an unnamed variety of Michaelmas Daisy that I have had for a few years it doesn’t seem to succumb to the slugs either
Plant six has to be Cyclamen hederifolium. It’s taken me years to get a decent show of these and now the seedlings are popping up all over the place. This particular one is a seedling from a large corm I bought in Amsterdam several years ago
That’s my six for this week. Happy gardening.
2. An unknown variety of Euphorbia. I was given a small clump of this by a friend many years ago. It’s a real stalwart and looks so bright in the sunshine.
3. Clematis alpina ‘Francis Rivis’ featured in a previous Six when it started back into life after the winter. It grows by my north facing front door on a windy corner. It’s a bit woody at the base and a few years ago I took the plunge and cut it back hard. The base is becoming woody again already.
4. There’s not a lot of room for trees in a small garden but I have squeezed in three. Amelanchier lamarckii ‘Ballerina’ flowers for a fleeting moment (and a gale usually arrives at the same time as the blossom) but is so beautiful.
5. I grew a variegated variety of Honesty (Lunaria annua) years back and a few seedlings pop up each year. It’s weaker growing than the plain green variety but very pretty.
6. And finally –
Have a good weekend in the garden, Sunday’s my day for catching up with the weeds and potting on things in the glasshouse.
2. In the photo above, visible through the glass, there is an Acer Palmatum that I grew from seed many years ago. It’s in a large pot as my soil is quite alkaline. The emerging foliage and flowers are beautiful, lime green and shrimp pink. It fills an awkward corner beautifully.
3. I grow wallflowers most years and the first one has started to flower. I can’t remember the variety. How do you keep them upright? Mine always seem to sprawl somewhat.
4. I have a couple of clumps of Fritillaria meleagris that came from my Dad’s garden about eight years ago. They’ve clumped up a little bit but I don’t think I’ll ever have a really impressive display of them. The conditions aren’t really right but they bring back lovely memories.
5. Muscari! Not one of my favourite bulbs as they’re a bit thuggish but I do have a soft spot for this bi-coloured variety, latifolium I think. I pull up a lot of seedlings every year though. They’re planted with Narcissus cyclamineous ‘Jumblie’.
That’s my six for this week. Thanks for reading about them. Don’t forget to check out all of the other Sixes at 
3. I must have had these Hyacinths indoors several years ago and then planted them outside. My non-gardener doesn’t like the smell of them. I don’t remember seeing them at all in the border last year.
4. I’ve built up a collection of large Alliums in the main border and I usually cut a couple of seed heads to dry and have indoors leaving the rest in situ until they start to break up in the winter. However, I seem to have an outbreak of seedlings coming up everywhere. It seems wrong to remove them but between them and forget-me- nots the ground is disappearing
5. I can’t finish my Six with a disaster so it’s at number five. I planted the early flowering Clematis koreana ‘Brunette’ early last spring to cover a new piece of trellis and it grew really well flowering on and off all through the summer. Around it is a clump of the beautiful white Anemone japonica ‘Honorine Jobert’. A couple of weeks ago I thought I’d better cut the Anemones down as they were spreading further than their allotted space and needed sorting. You’ve no doubt guessed what happened. A whole year lost!
6. After admiring Fred the French Gardener’s photos I bought myself a macro lens for my iphone. Thanks for the link Fred. It was a bit windy this morning for close ups but I managed this one.
It’s a Hellebore. Reminds me of an (underwater) anemone.
5. There was an offer of 72 perennial plug plants in the paper the other week, postage only. I’m more of a seed and cutting person really but was intrigued to see what they’d be like. They were really well packed and in very good health. I think a fair few will end up in daughter’s new garden.
6. I have staging down one side and across the end of my (unheated) glasshouse and then grow tomatoes and peppers along the other side. At this time of year though I start to run out of room. The staging is pretty well full with overwintering fuchsias, geraniums, begonias etc. so nowhere for pots and trays of seedlings to go. I was going to start sowing this weekend but the cold snap has put paid to that. I’ve used a pasting table in the past but it’s not very stable and tends to sag in the middle! The non-gardener built this for me! It holds 13 seed trays and dismantles very quickly. The pots of Dahlias and Cannas should be alright below. Can’t wait to start using it.
That’s my six for this week. Thanks for looking in. Don’t forget to check out the other Six’s at our host’s site
2. This clump of dwarf tulips come up every year. They’re sheltered behind a low wall but seem to be very early this year. The effect is slightly spoiled by the self-sown Heleborus foetidus seedling growing in the middle of them!
3. Clematis alpina ‘Francis Rivis’ grows by the front door. It only has a narrow strip of wall/trellis to grow up and faces north. It’s planted in a tiny bit of soil next to a gravelled part of the drive, maybe not ideal conditions. I don’t prune it and after about 15 years it was full of dead stems so……. three years ago I cut it to about six inches above the ground and gave it the talk. It sulked the first year and I thought I’d killed it then last year it started its ascent of the wall again and had a few flowers. It’s looking quite promising this year. Despite the snow the flowers have started to unfurl this week.
4. Pulmonaria seeds itself around the garden quite freely. It’s such a good value plant, looking good for most of the year. I’ve a couple of named varieties but they aren’t quite so advanced as this one which opened it’s first flowers this morning, despite the rain.
5. The sun came out very briefly and these beautiful Crocus nearly opened.
6. Every day new shoots start appearing. These are Dicentra spectabilis growing beneath a Viburnum bodnantense ‘Dawn’.
That’s my six for this week, thanks for looking. Thanks also to our host for this great idea. Check out his and other Sixes at 
3. I cut back the later flowering Clematis a few weeks ago and some of them have put on a lot of growth. I know they’ll come back but all that growth lost! As a contrast, Clematis orientalis seems unscathed, a much more sensible growth habit for the time of year
4. Lonicera fragrantissima has been beautiful this winter but has come to an abrupt end. Brown isn’t a good look for flowers
5. Next job is to get the thawing snow off the roof of the glasshouse before it descends in one go onto the plants below burying them even deeper.
6. I don’t heat my glasshouse at the moment, the non- gardener is slowly thinking about it for me, and so rely on layers of fleece to protect cuttings and over wintering plants. It works most years but this is the first time that I’ve left the covers on for days on end. I’ve looked underneath a few times and the compost in the smaller pots is frozen solid. Plants are resilient things but I may well be in the market for a lot of Fuchsias, Salvias and Geraniums in the spring! Lots of new planting opportunities 😊
That’s my six for this week. Did I mention that I hate snow? I think I’ve been quite cheerful considering. I’m going to sort out seeds this afternoon in preparation for slightly warmer weather and then I’ll be the gardening quilter (as opposed to the quilting gardener).
2. Fence panels! Where I can I have planted shrubs on the boundaries but I have a corner garden so share boundaries with two other properties, both owned by non gardeners. One has a mown lawn, an apple tree and absolutely nothing else but the other one has loads of plants such as brambles (sorry! blackberries), bindweed, dandeunmown grass etc. Most of the fence panels have shrubs in front of them or, where there isn’t room for something to grow outwards are covered with climbers. However, I have three four foot high panels that I’m struggling to cover up. They face north and the prevailing wind blows along them. There is a small border in front of them that is a temporary home to some of the Michaelmas Daisies that I bought last autumn. They’re not tall enough for Clematis etc. and I don’t want to lose much depth from the border. Any suggestions gratefully received.
3. Clematis puzzle me at this time of year. Ones that are due to flower early in the season such as alpina ‘Francis Rivis’ and ‘Guernsey Cream’ have virtually no new growth visible and yet other, much later flowering varieties, have loads of new growth, most of which I cut off. I’ve missed C. ‘Black Tea’!
4. I planted this Sorbaria sorbifolia two years ago. The emerging foliage is such a bright colour and it looks good right through to late autumn. However, there would seem to be new shoots emerging a distance away from the main plant so I’m going to have to keep an eye on it, I hope it doesn’t run too far/vigorously.
5. Over the years I’ve made a few obelisks for, mainly, Clematis to grow up in the ‘large’ border following Geoff Hamilton’s instructions of many years ago. However, the legs gradually rot off in the soil. This one kept blowing over in the wind and was threatening to flatten some of my Hellebores. The non-gardener found these ground anchors on line. The obelisk is going nowhere now! They’re a bit shiny but will soon be buried in the undergrowth.
6. Euphorbia x martini ‘Ascot Rainbow’ was new to me last year. It has looked good ever since, even when frosted.
