Six on Saturday 08/08/20

It’s forecast to be 29 degrees today (feeling like 34, apparently) which, after a pretty warm and, at times, windy week with still no rain means that a lot of the plants in the ground are getting very stressed. I was dead heading in the main border earlier this morning (trying to beat the heat) and the plants towards the back are wilting very badly. Hopefully, they’ll pick up a bit this evening and overnight but I’m not sure how much longer they’ll hang on. Enough of the doom and gloom and on with this weeks Six on Saturday. These plants are not in the main border! I was a bit late taking the pictures this morning and so they’re a bit too sunny.

• Let’s start on the patio. I spent an afternoon this week taking cuttings of Solenostemon (Coleus in old money). I grew some last year but didn’t keep the cuttings warm enough to get them through the winter. I bought some new rooted cuttings from Dibleys and they have done really well. Another lesson learnt the hard way last year was not to plant them in the borders as the SnS can smell them from half a mile away. All in pots this year and doing very well.

Patio pots with Solenostemon

The cuttings before covering

The trimmings in the bucket were as pretty as a picture!

Beautiful

• The succulents certainly don’t seem to mind the lack of rain and several are flowering. They are in individual or group pots on the patio, along with Succulent Tower. This is Pachyphytum bracteosum, bought as a tiny plant last year. On the other side of the plant are two offshoots but I can’t quite bring myself to cut them off! It’s a shame that the flower stalk is so weighty as it means that the individual flowers are hidden from view.

• In the same pan is an Echiveria that is also flowering. The stem is out of all proportion to the plant (see first Pachyphytum photo)

Echiveria rosettes with triffid emerging from the centre

• Also in a pot on the patio is Fuchsia ‘Lechlade Gordon’. Acquired last year, the main plant wasn’t as hardy as I’d hoped but I had a couple of cuttings. Phew! The honey bees have loved the flowers on this but were camera shy this morning. Looking at the notches that have appeared in the leaves the last few days I’d say that the vine weevils are enjoying them as well 😢. Nemotodes ordered.

• Todays final patio selection is Eucomis ‘Oakhurst’. I have a few varieties of Eucomis and there were some very desirable ones featured in some of last weeks Sixes so the number may well increase. I have tried growing them in the ground but the SnS adore the leaves (and the flower stem). Also, in the case of E. bicolor, the leaves that survived the munching grew so large and then flopped over nearby plants. So they are all in pots. I keep most of them away from the patio because they have a very unattractive smell. Flies, however, find it irresistible. ‘Oakhurst’ is an exception because I love the colour.

• To break the patio theme – Lobelia x speciosa ‘Hadspen Purple’. Although this is very hardy I overwinter it in a pot so that it can get to a SnS resistant size before planting out. My Cosmos labelling obviously wasn’t as accurate as I thought hence the rogue ‘Antiquity’ in amongst the yellow ‘Xanthos’. It seems very happy so I can’t bring myself to pull it up.

It’s tooooo hot out there now to garden so I’m going to sit in the shade and catch up with some other Sixes, actually on a Saturday instead of my usual Wednesday and Thursday. You can do the same courtesy of our leader at https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/