Wicked Unrest

Knackered.

It's #SixOnSaturday time again.  I, for one, wasn't ready.

The endless harvest, pets needing their jabs, political melodrama back home, CFS giving me stick - no way I'd post this week.

Then El Punko asks if he can take my SoS photos in order to get some practice with his new camera.

No rest for the wicked, it does seem.



1.  Harvest continues.

Last week, you saw all the peppers lined up in the shed after being picked early to protect them from the wind.  I've been bringing them inside as they develop colour.  Between them & the daily gathering of maters, the windowsill is always full.

The red CA sweet pepper has a symbiotic twin.

2.  Cucumelons.

I learned on Twitter from Rob Smith (@RobsAllotment) that cucumelon form tubers that can be lifted & stored over winter.  Mine are still producing at a great rate, although a few leaves have turned colour.  I suspect it'll be next month before I think about digging them up.

Cucumelon on the bed spring trellis.

Continuing the standard set by the California sweet pepper . . .

Cucu-weird-shape.

3.  Autumn berries.

They say lots of holly berries means a heavy winter & our trees have lots of berries, but they're going a little bit funny on us.  Hopefully none of them will make it into tiny, spiky holly saplings.

What's happening, Mizzy HollyTree?

There's also a volunteer snowberry in the garden.  Like the holly, I love their berries, hate their propensity to spread.  There's just the one this year, but give it time.

Snowberry caught in a web.

4.  Changing foliage.

In the field where we walk the dogs, the chestnut trees (buckeyes, to me) have started to change colour.  Along our street, however, the trees are holding their own.  Not so, for the flowers . . .

Columbine on the cat grave starting to fade.

. . . or the shrubs.

Gillenia getting a bit orange around the edges.

5.  Sedum, at long last.

My sedum with the purple stems & leaves (name buried somewhere out of reach at the moment) bloomed in July.  This great precursor of summer's end - Autumn Joy perhaps? - has finally got some colour.

Sedum & the oft-spoken of, crooked cherry tree.

6.  Last Rose.

The only roses in my current garden were grown from seeds I scavenged during a birthday trip to Paris a few years ago.  They've all bloomed, but not vigorously, so this last blossom really pleased me.

Last of the year's blossoms.

To me, winter, spring & summer are all single purpose.  Autumn, on the other hand, is complex, incorporates birth & death.  It's got my vote for best out of the 4.

Now for a snooze.

And that's my Six for the week.

I'm so glad El Punko wanted some photography practice.  Equally glad you stopped by for a gander.

Make sure to run over to Mr P's for links to other blogs.  And if you've got a garden to share, he's got guidelines.

See you again, soon!

Week of the Wet

Cedar covered in droplets.

I don't know about the rest of you, but the wet is starting to get to me.  On the bright side, it's become obvious I could never be a mud wrestler, so there's one less thing on my bucket list.

As to the garden, everyone out there seems pretty happy about the weather.  Such as . . . 

1. . . . the mushrooms in the honeysuckle pot.

Happy little mushrooms.

2.  The bleeding heart seems to've woken up.  I don't remember the name of this dicentra, only that its leaves were supposed to have a silver cast to them, contrasting with flowers that were a deeper red than other bleeding hearts.  It failed on both counts, so will be left behind in this garden when I go.

Wakey, wakey sleepy head.

3.  There's also buds on these unknown little things.  They got rescued in my last garden from under a cordyline that'd sucked all the nutrients out of the soil.  They're quite prolific, whatever they are.  Any pot I stick them in, they fill in coupla seasons.  Last summer, there were only 3 plants in this lot & look at them now.  Wildfire, they are.

Poor nameless orphans, but dearly loved.

4.  Years ago when I lived in Galway, fuchsia was the go-to plant for covering up ugly spaces - then promptly neglected to turn ugly themselves.  I've inherited a few in my various gardens over the years, & those stepchillen taught me that, with proper care, they can be stunning.

Even so, after the Galway uglies, the sight of a stranger fuchsia still raises that urgh feeling in my stomach.  The only way these annual babies entered my garden last year was as a free gift with a plant order.  I stuck them in my tree pots & tried not to get too friendly with them.  

To be honest, though, how can anyone with a heart feel repulsed by that sassy thang? 

The last fuchsia blossoms & a fading snapdragon.

5.  Like many of you, I've been pruning, only I do it a little at a time lest I anger Demon CFS.  Wisteria, elder, apple, none have escaped me.  Even the yew's had a bit of the back & sides.

A certain SoSer whom I shall not name & shame, has given me tripod ladder envy, especially when battling our old & incredibly grumpy wisteria that's  currently throttling the apple tree.

All this photo needs is a tripod ladder.

6.  What I should prune but will not, is this lovely little cherry tree.  It'd either self seeded or more likely, been planted by a squirrel under an enormous hebe in my last garden.  

The now vertical trunk grew horizontally along the ground, then turned upward to get sun.  The landlord's 'gardeners' would trim it within the hebe shape.  Where the 2 o'clock trunk suddenly becomes small branches denotes the time I came into its life & stopped the annual decapitation.  

So now this large hebe globe had a cherry tree sticking out of it.  For 8 months, I wondered what to do about the situation.  Once we moved, it'd not have me to protect it.  The tree itself answered my question by blooming.  

Have you ever fallen in love with a tree?  Head over heels, I confess.  So I crawled my hag body into the small space under the hebe, dug like an archaeologist unearthing a rare find, then pulled out the cherry tree & hoped for the best.

Here it is, 2 years later, crooked & thriving.  Which I hope it'll do until I find my forever home where it'll get planted in a spot even ancient-crone-me can see from a window.

My cherry crush.

So there's my very damp Six.  I'm very glad you stopped by this week.  Do go over to The Propagator for his Six & links in his comment section for a dozen or so more Six on Saturday.

Snowberry shrub covered in rain.