From Last Week, Comes This.

It's Six On Saturday time - a weekly opportunity sponsored by The Propagator for gardeners to share our stuff & stick our noses into stuff from other gardens all over the world.

A few of my Sixes this week relate to last week.  Some relate to many weeks before.  That's a garden for you.

So let's do this thang.






1.  Wind damage.

Last week, I posted shots of the garden before the Big Wind.  There were no losses here from the storm, just battered petals & leaves.  However, after the storm, any light brush against the pale yellow sunflowers broke the side flowers off at the main stem.  Which meant they came inside.

Here's a close up of those beautiful faces.

I've never had sunflowers so intolerant of being touched.  As this is their first year w/me, I'm not sure if that fragility is a feature of the type or comes from the wind.  What says the SoS gang?


2.  Anemone & plum.

The anemones were one of the few flowers growing in the back garden when we moved here.  A few weeks ago, they started to open, one here, one there, but now they're a brilliantly white flash mob. 

The plum sustained some wind battering to its leaves, but the anemones were unscathed.


3.  The SoS Curse.

SoS-ers've introduced me to a lot of the plants now growing in my garden.  Last week, Jim Stephens featured a New Zealand fuchsia that I absolutely fell in love with.  In the process of researching & price comparing & trying to talk myself out of buying yet another plant, I found this.

On eBay, of all places.  Oregano Amethyst Falls.  Its flowers are similar to what hops produce, with pink blooms in chartreuse bracts.  Although ornamental, the leaves can be used in cooking.  The cooks in my house aren't going to be told that.

Now, about that fuchsia, eBay Guy has one of those, too.


4.  Speaking of hops (& brambles).

You might remember this past spring, I decided to embrace a bramble invasion from next door rather than tackle it in the moment.  Not only did said bramble grow uglier'n sin, but it produced no flowers.  Meanwhile, its parent plant waves over the top of the fence at us, flaunting scads of fruit, which the birds are pretty happy about.

Assuming the berries might grow on last year's growth (& not bothering to look it up), our bramble got a reprieve until next year, but very early on, I planted a hops next to it to cover the ugly.  I actually like the contrast between the 2 greens, so haven't a clue what'll happen if the bramble gives no fruit next year.


5.  Creeping Jenny.

Another weird idea plan from spring was to beautify the Doodle Pool.  I'd seen a photo of Creeping Jenny in a floating planter, Jenny creeping across the water.  I put a bit in the bamboo Bug & Crittur Life Raft & started hoping.

It's begun to head in the right direction.  If it gets there before first frost, I'll post a photo.

When I first saw this photo, I thought the little brown dot in the bulrushes was a flower bud, but it's a seed pod from some nearby tree.  Bummer.


6.  Baby Groot.

This little guy germinated in my hot press 6 years ago.  It lost arms to the Beast from the East, so subsequent new growth made me wildly happy.  I was still concerned that, for a 6 year old Monkey Puzzle, it was on the small side.

It wasn't due for a repot, but for whatever reason - probably because he looked sad & nothing to do w/recently watching Guardians of the Galaxy 2 - I decided to repot Groot this week.

Lo & behold, poor Groot's roots were in a 9cm biodegradable pot which hadn't degraded (like those below).  A selling point of the pots was that, in a few years, it'd be gone.  It didn't click in my brain that living in a 9cm pot for a 'few years' (6, in this case) was never going to work for a growing tree.

The pot walls'd thinned, so I was able to pry them off without damaging Groot.  Now his little toes're free.

This is the 2nd plant this year whose suffering originated below the surface, the first being the Crooked Cherry choked by a rogue valerian (both doing nicely since their separation).  I'm quite hesitant to go underground in my search for plant health, but I see that hesitation now as a mistake.  I also will never again sink a biodegradable pot.

And that's all she wrote - this fat lady has sung, so the show's over.

I really appreciate you stopping by & love when you leave a comment behind.

See you next time!