My Little Garden 21st Aug 2021
August has been whizzing along, and in week four of the school holidays we have been blackberry picking with both sets of granddaughters. The youngest is only two so it was her first proper experience of this prickly activity but she took to it like a natural. If blackberries were spotted out of her reach grandad was instructed to get them for her. A very scrumptious blackberry and apple crumble was made with the pickings and one of our favourite late summer outings was over for another year.
The garden is well watered after all the rain, but I’m not sure what’s happened to the promised heatwave. I’ve been giving some more thought to the areas of the garden that I’m not happy with, which is normally a job for autumn, but then it really does feel like the best of summer is over. So on that note I’m starting my Six on Saturday choices this week with a plant that I hope will go on flowering right into autumn.
- Zinnia
I grew them from seed for the first time last year and the orange one in the header shot is from the mixed pack of seeds that came free with the Gardeners World Mag. Last year they were all pink, this year they are orange.
I bought this one at a garden centre and annoyingly it has more buds than the orange one. To be fair, the former is lurking behind a large dahlia so it’s probably doing well to flower at all.
2. Crab Apple
Definitely a bit of an autumnal shot here.
3. Veronicastrum
A new purchase to fill in the gap that I created last week when I removed an old clematis. Lovely tall spires for the back of the border.
4. Snapdragon
Another garden centre purchase from early summer. They just go on flowering for ever.
5. Thalictrum
A nightmare to photograph successfully, but it’s so pretty.
6. Gladiolus papilio
I was given a small clump of these last year by John Bent from his Weeping Ash garden and I’ve added a few more this summer.
The genus name Gladiolus is derived from the Latin word for ‘little sword’ (like the leaves)and the species name papilio is Latin for ‘butterfly-like’ which refers to the markings on the lower tepals which resemble the wings of a butterfly. The first flower opened in the worst possible spot for a photo but I’ll try to do better next week.
And that’s it for another week. The weather forecast is for rain all weekend so I don’t think much will get done in the garden but if you want to find out what’s happening elsewhere around the gardening world, take a look at the blog of The Propagator (aka the boss of Six on Saturday).
https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/
As always there are many more excellent photos on twitter under the hashtag #SixonSaturday
Thank you for reading and have a great weekend.
