Six Reasons to Six on Saturday

Let there be bulbs & buds.

There've been a few Sixers lamenting that they've nothing but buds, bulbs & more buds to post in their SoS blogs.



Personally, I can't get enough bud & bulb photos.  But then, I also enjoy folks' holiday snaps, so my opinion is suspect.






Last week, CFS had me on house arrest with orders there'd be no writing.  Not a bad sentence, since it was lashing outside.  Plenty of time to contemplate the boon that is our SoS community.

We all have different skill levels, obsessions, time & energy, so SoS works differently for each of us.  The fact we keep coming back - & in some cases, only to read, not to blog - means it does work.

And that's my offering for this week.  A half dozen reasons why I SoS.


1.  It's global.

Globe trotting in slippers & pjs.

Regardless the weather or my health, I visit gardens from 4 continents - FOUR - every week.  That means seeing in their natural environment, trees & plants that could never grow in my climate.  Learning far away methods for growing things that will survive in my garden.  Being reminded of places I used to live.  Seeing that the joys & woes of gardening are fairly universal.





2.  Getting out of the rut.

We once lived in a village where most of my neighbours grew the same flowers - valerians, roses, dahlias, the occasional maverick pansy.

Poor little rejects.

I'm a little slow off the mark, so for my first village fair there, I donated a couple of trays of gazanias to the plant table.  At the end of the day, not a single gazania had been sold.

Conversely, after 3 months of SoS-ing, I've 11 pages of plants I'd like to grow.

While there's no way all those ideas will make it into my garden, that many options stoke the creativity - which in itself, is benefit enough.






3.  Coaxed off the turnip truck.

Long way from home.

I emigrated about 2 decades ago, but've not completely switched gears to this climate, its diseases, pests, plants & wildlife.

Growing carrots, spuds & maters in containers just seems wrong.

But SoS as a virtual garden club has my back.  I want fresh cherry tomatoes?  Revel in my containers.





4.  Seasonal reminders.

Tools of the trade.

Following along from that, my seasonal rhythms are still in Appalachia - all my February gardening chores there started & ended with snow.

While SoS gently nudges me into GMT, even natives of hardiness zones 7 - 9 can appreciate the call to prune, plant, or harvest in the appropriate season.





5.  Erudition.

My gardening ethos is decidedly up-the-holler => plants are beautiful, useful, spiritual.  In my previous life, I could rattle off the medicinal qualities of a plant, its various common names, plus any & all folklore attached to them.  Just try mentioning a recipe in your Six, & I'm all over it.

Not sure how you pronounce that one.

Having said that, I've resisted calling out plants in the dead language, even though I'm old enough to remember Mass being said in Latin.

Not so, our other intrepid SoS-ers.

As a result (& without study on my part), I now recognise the Latin names for grasses, poppies, honeysuckle & witch hazel.




So if anyone knows of something more efficient than the Google method of learning Latin names (i.e. an actual book), please do let me know.


6.  Respite for my poor, non-gardening family members.

I swear I'm listening.

Me: (looking at my Twitter feed) Wow, that's some hellebore.

Son:  I take it that's a flower.

Me:  (turns laptop for him to see)

Son:  Oh.  That's . . . pretty.

Rinse.  Repeat.

Respite from hearing garden talk.

Except when I'm talking about Six on Saturday.

So that's my no-bud, no-bulb contribution for this week.  I'd love to know why you Six on Saturday.

Do take yourself over to The Propagator who has his own Six, plus hosts scads of other SoSers in his comment section.  Go on, don't you forget now.

Thanks for stopping by!

Pickled shallot recipe.

Four Seasons in a Week?

They'd rather be outside.

Before emigrating to the UK, I lived with four discernible seasons.  In winter, the snow'd get mid-thigh, so I'd let the springer spaniel break a glee-inspired crooked path through the snow to the car. 

This week in my garden, the temps are decidedly winter, but visually, one could argue 4 seasons co-exist here.





1.  In the spring category, bulbs known & unknown are coming up.  Although called summer snowflakes by their friends, the leucojum aestivum took the best photo.  Here, you can see a winter jasmine checking them out.  The yellow leaves against the wall = grasping wisteria that escaped pruning.

Leucogjum aestivum, aka summer snowflake.

2.  For my faux summer, there's still a lot of bloom in the garden - snap dragon, lavender, bergenia, hesperantha, some purple thing I can never remember the name of because I don't really like it but the rest of my family does.  And of course, my good friend calendula.

Calendula.

3.  Clematis seeds represent late summer, early autumn.  It's self-seeded in various cracks & pots over the summer, so I should dead head it, but they're so lovely to look at, I'm being rather foolish about them.

Clematis seed heads.

This clematis was here before us, so identity unknown.  Comparing a bad photo of it in early autumn with Google Images gave me several options, all of which look alike to my untrained eye.  Maybe western white clematis - clematis ligusticifolia - which apparently is native to the west coast of North America.

Last of the clematis blooms.

4.  For something well into autumn, weigela.  I got this one by layering an old shrub in my previous garden.  That house was built in the 1970s, the garden still containing much of the original landscaping, so this guy could be from that era.  It's leaves are unveriegated, the blossoms pinky purple.  Not much to go on, in terms of identification, but that's what it is.  I rather like the old guy.

Weigela photobombed by the cotoneaster.

5.  For all this pretend-season foolduggery, one (me) must admit it's actually winter.  This week we got the dread snow, which I'd hoped would kill off the chard. 

Please let it die.

As written previously, this chard came under the guise of a Christmas present in seed form.  Despite our best efforts, none of us enjoyed eating it, though the colours were pretty stunning.

Post snow photo.

The snow did kill off the cosmos next to it, though.  When I removed the cosmos, I found this sneaky little chard growing to beat the band.  You can see it behind the grown-up chard in the post snow photo.

Really purple chard.

So my love-hate of chard continues.  Its colour may win a permanent place in the flowerbed.

6.  Tales of Brer Fox.  I've been watching his antics in the back garden via my wildlife cam.  One of his regular habits is to stand in pots to get a better look at things before exiting the garden.  The snow revealed that a certain Doodle (who shall remain nameless), tracks his every move.

Doodle tiptoeing through the garlic.

This is the first time since last spring that Brer Fox dug anything up, though.  Hopefully this was one raucous night that won't be repeated.

Very glad Brer Fox left the bulbs for replanting.

Mizzy BunnyButt scouring for next week's SoS.

Thus ends the four seasons pretence.  Please be sure to hop over to The Propagator for his Six, plus links in his comment section to other Six on Saturday garden blogs.  New blogs come up over the weekend, so be sure to follow #SixonSaturday on Twitter as well.

See you next week!