Mixed Bag

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It's #SixOnSaturday time, a weekly hashtag used by gardeners all over the world to feature six things from their gardens.

To read their posts or even join in yourself, visit Mr Propagator for some great stuff.

Let's see what's made an appearance in my garden this week.







1.  Sun.

Our first year in this garden & I've learned that what was the shady border in February/March, is not particularly shady in June & July.  I've had to resort to a sail for my poor shade lovers.

Not so shady border.

The brunnera & 2 of my actaea will be relocated to the front garden next year.  Everyone else seems to be coping well enough with the sun, including a third but larger type of actaea.


2.  Water lily.

The long awaited water lily has bloomed.

BigNoseWalk Pond.

Just kidding.  Wish I had a pond this big, but we've had to content ourselves with the Doodle pool.

This is my first year putting aquatic plants in it & one of our water lilies has finally opened.  I couldn't remember what colours I'd bought, but to be honest, I'd've been pleased with any colour, so I didn't complain when it open up yellow.

1st lily blossom.

Then it started to blush, keeping that buttery yellow centre (plus a necklace of toadflax flowers).

Changing colours.

And that blush faded to cream.  The bloom reacts to light, which is why the older bloom (below), looks more closed than the younger bloom above.

Coupla friends.

Whatever its dress, all sorts of insects love it.


3.  Speaking of insects . . . 

I got a bee box for Christmas but with everything that needed done in the new garden, I hadn't given a lot of thought about where to put it.  The instructions said it could be set on a post, so the pot shelves became its temporary home.

The shelves are in a fenced off paved area away from the flowerbeds with only some herb robert & an optimistic valerian growing up through the pavers.

New tenants

I was surprised & delighted when the bees found it.  These look to be leaf cutting bees.

Less than tidy.

Some are better at housekeeping than others, as you can see.


4.  Corn flower.

These seeds came in a kit of edible flowers - another great Christmas pressie.

Hungry, anyone?

Too beautiful to eat & they've got a lovely smell.


5.  Cheaper by the dozen.

They must've been on sale because I don't tend to go for multiples of the same type plant, but here they are, a 'collection' of 12 achillea plants that've just started to bloom.

A. Cerise.

Well, that's not really accurate.  When Cerise started to bloom, I checked my paperwork to see what other colours there'd be.  Turns out the white flowers that'd appeared out of nowhere a few weeks ago are really A. The Pearl.

A. the Pearl.

The foliage doesn't resemble Cerise's feathery fern-like structure, which made me wonder if, even tho Pearl was the only white achillea listed, some other unidentified white flowers were also from the 'collection'.

An achillea by any other name . . .

Or maybe I'm wrong about these white flowers being achillea, which means I haven't a clue where they came from.  Whatever the answer, white flowers are most welcomed here.


6.  Outlaws.

The magpies have successfully raised 2 fledglings who are hell on wheels.  The parents used to sit on the fence screaming at their wild offspring to get out of our garden, probably because of our cat.  Of course, the adolescents ignored them, & the parents eventually gave up trying to supervise them.

You grab that end . . . 

They're intelligent, destructive, funny birds who love swinging on the hammock.  In the photo above, they're trying to steal the curtain rod supporting the mattress spring trellis.

A coupla days ago, I stopped in the middle of cleaning up after the dogs to answer the door.  When I came back, the Outlaws were playing hot potato with the abandoned poo bag.  They quickly got it opened, after which they picked out each little bit of poo & flung them all over the lawn.

Recently, I saw one of them eating bugs on the neighbour's roof with a crow fledgling.  Tho larger, the crow did wing flutters at the magpie, like fledglings do to get fed.  The magpie verbalised back to the crow, then seemed to be showing it how to feed.  The crow would peck at a few bugs, then wing flutter again.  They kept doing this up the roof & over, out of sight.

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And there's my stories for the week.

Thanks for stopping by & don't forget to check out The Propagator's blog.

Hope to see you next time.

That's me done talking.