Six on Saturday 16/03/19

It’s been such a windy week and the leaves of some of the plants in the garden are showing signs of windburn, especially the new Clematis growth. I know they’ll recover but it’s a hard start for them. Despite the blowy conditions the temperature has been fairly steady and quite warm at night (given that it’s March) and there’s signs of life appearing daily. It’s such an uplifting time in the garden at the moment. Apart from a few things that take a long time to germinate, main seed sowing is delayed until after a visit to family in Belfast next week but my fingers are itching to get started.

In the meantime here is a very quick and possibly slightly out of focus Six. It’s tricky timing photographs between the wind gusts.

1. The pots of bulbs continue to flower but the stems are struggling to stay upright.

2. The bulbs in the borders aren’t faring much better but these little dwarf tulips are fine.

3. Whilst photographing the little tulips I noticed that the Forget-Me-Not is starting to flower. The long border was a sea of blue last year but I’m trying to show a little more restraint this year and have pulled a lot out.

4. Behind the garage and to the right of the recently replaced arch is a little border. It’s very well drained as many years ago the rubble from an old path was buried under it and there is also a Pyracantha trained against the end wall of the garage. It faces south and is in quite a sheltered spot. This border has never really had an identity and is an area I hope to improve this year as I’m sure more should be made of its location. Meanwhile, the Arabis procurrens ‘Variegata’ is flowering alongside an unknown variety of Parahebe which hardly ever stops flowering.

5. I keep a very tight rein on the Muscari but love their flowers at this time of the year. I think this is M. latifolium.

6. In the autumn I cut down an elderly and not very healthy Griselinia littoralis ‘Variegata’. This morning I  dug down around the root stump, cut off as many roots as I could then spoke nicely to the Non-Gardener who took the chain saw to it and managed to remove a good chunk of it. I couldn’t dig out wider as it was in a narrow border against a fence. Most of the roots seemed to have disappeared either under the fence/gravel board or forward under the gravel path. This spot is north facing, quite shady and between a very large Golden Privet (Ligustrum ovalifolium ‘Aureum’) and (another) Pyracantha. Perfect growing conditions! I’ve planted a x Fatshedera Lizzie ‘Variegata’ against the fence but haven’t decided what to plant in the front. All suggestions welcome.

We’re forecast a lot of rain through tonight but tomorrow is supposed to be drier and calmer so I’m hoping to spend the day outdoors. I hope you get to spend some time in your garden this weekend and then spend time envying other Sixers their plant choices courtesy of our host at

https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/