Stormy Weather

Six on Saturday is a weekly diary hosted by The Propagator & contributed to by gardeners all over the world.  For links to other SoS blogs, check out Mr P's comment section & the Twitter hashtag, #SixOnSaturday.

A little damp after Mr BigNose's walk.

Storm Brendan sent the patio sofa into the calendula, which took it quite well.  The garden walls protected most everything else, letting plants get on with their wintering.

The winter garden's so different to itself in other seasons, making it endlessly interesting now, sometimes surprising.

My family don weak smiles at my too-many tales of old friends showing new growth & long lost bulbs suddenly appeared.  (There was, however, real joy amongst the cooks that the garlic was up.)

So, much as I like them, 6 things this week that aren't bulbs or new growth.



1.  Rose, Tough as Nails.

I haven't a clue what this rose is really called, as it & 4 others were here when we moved in.

They border the front lawn, which is where our neighbour's recycling ended up, courtesy the 50+ mph winds sending their bins AOT.  It boggles the mind that, after Brendan, these gals look so fine.


2.  Romanesco, again.

I decided to harvest one of the heads prior to Storm Brendan, just in case.  (The others weren't damaged.)

I'm not a cook - store bought tortellini is a culinary challenge for me - but I didn't want to wait for the cooks' return to try the romanesco.

A web search directed me to Nigella's recipe for serving it with a rosemary & garlic oil.

Certainly tarted up that tortellini.


3.  Glad tidings.

Speaking of the romanesco, the row of glads growing amongst them've only just now died back.

This is the first time they've survived into the New Year, & I'd put it down to the romanesco protecting them.  However, these glads below are at the edge of the raised bed, so less protected by big ole brassica leaves.

And equally less dead.


4.  Clematis Winter Beauty.

This got planted at the end of summer, & it's grown about chest high (on me).  I love the foliage.

There are minuscule buds on it, so hopefully there'll be clematis blooms in my future.


5.  Critical evidence.

A motion outside the kitchen window made me witness to a medium sized, dull coloured bird lifting off the ground.  It looked too slender to be a pigeon, which isn't much in the way of identification, especially since I didn't see its head.

Oddly, there wasn't another bird to be seen in the back garden.  I opened the door to absolute bird silence.  Sparrow hawk, thinks me.

Later, when cleaning up the neighbour's recycling from my front lawn, I found several of these in the grass.

While checking for debris out back, I saw this on the public footpath.  If you can't tell, those are the small body feathers of some bird or other, possibly of a very white complexion.

Most of our pigeon visitors are storm-cloud grey & the 2 white ones are still very much alive, not to mention ravenous.  If there were a murder victim, which seems likely, it's not one of our crew.


6.  Witches in red.

First up, what was sold to me as witch hazel Jelena.  She's very red, as a few Jelena seem to be in image searches.  However, the Jelenas in other SoS posts are more orange, so I'm not sure she was labelled correctly when she came to me.

I do like her quite well.  When she's in leaf, she nicely hides my pot store.

Here below is her cousin, loropetalum, whom I prefer calling lorapetalum.  After being brought to task for doing so, I only use that better name in private.

You get your money's worth with loro - she tends to bloom twice a year, spring & autumn, plus her foliage is beautiful.  This is her first spring flower to open.  If she's true to her nature, there'll be many more.

Quite a difference in the depth of red between the 2 witches.

Wind-drunk obelisk.

That's all for this week.  Now that Brendan has gone home, it might be a good day for moving the hemerocallis.  But I shan't be too hasty deciding.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  Look forward to seeing you next time.