Potluck

Caterpillar-eaten kale flowering away.

The serendipity of nature really tickles the beejayzus out of me.  It's an unseen collaborator, making quiet little gardening tweaks such as herb Robert around the peony, bindweed twining up the wrought iron gate, cosmos colluding with kale in an optical illusion.

This week, let's see what the Collaborator has done to my pots.











1.  A magic stick.

When we moved during the Beast from the East, some of our lifted plants came in plastic bags wrapped with sheep fleece.  As soon as possible, I rammed them into any available pot.

This included pots left by the previous tenants, who were specialist gardeners (har har har).  Our black grass went into one that had a three-tined dead stick in it.  Today, the black grasses are blooming in front of the bark-shedding dead stick.

In bloom.

The pot luck here isn't the black grass, but the thriving dead stick with its one summer's worth of growth.  Can anyone ID it for me?

It lives!

2.  Oh, Cory!

Earlier this year, I sowed some lambs lettuce in the pot with the fading erythronium.  An effort which produced a feckless feckall.

Late, great dogtooth lily.

With other more successful seedlings rampaging around the garden, I forgot the FF pot in its shady corner.  And then this appeared in it.

My buddy, Cory.

A lovely self-seeded corydalis, possibly from our last house where it grew like crazy.  My Unseen Collaborator, she knows what I like


3.  Another stowaway.

I rescued this teeeeny weeeeny fernee fella from the lawn & slapped it into what, at the time, was a plant-less pot.  Now the fern has company.

Am I pink knotweed?

Last year, my 92 year old neighbour gave me pink knotweed as thanks for always stopping to let her pet Mr BigNoseDog on our daily walks.  Mr BND'd knock me down for a pet from anyone, but I kept that to myself, & graciously accepted the cutting.

Not sure why it took so long to show itself this year.

And for those of you aghast that I grow knotweed, rest assured my garden has far, far worse things growing in it with my full consent.


4.  Like this thug.

Another pot luck caused by our move was thrusting goldenrod & queen of the prairie into the same pot so I could replicate how they looked last year:

Last year's golden queen.

This is what that pot looks like today.

Queen makes way for a thug.

The queen of the prairie survives behind the asters, but only foliage, no bloom.  There wasn't a whiff that those sneaky aster bastards were in the pot, yet now they've taken over.

There'll be a separation of powers in this pot come autumn.  Rest assured no thug shall perish in this coup.


5.  Comedy of errors.

I wanted verbena bonariensis for my last garden, but in some type of brain glitch, ordered common valerian instead.  The valerian didn't bloom its first year, so when we moved, I dug up its dead stick, & brought it along.

The foliage that came up wasn't valerian, but I let it grow, hoping for a pleasant surprise.

I got this ugly thang.

Ugly weed.

The tiny yellow flowerbuds never seemed to open, yet've already gone to seed.  Floaty, flying millions upon millions of ugly thang seed.

Ugly thang's back lit glam photo.

6.  A cosmos by any other foliage . . . 

My perennials've mostly been stalled or killed by drought.  The smattering of annuals that were meant to be colourful interludes, now have to carry the can.

All grown from seed, they're cheap & cheery low maintenance types which include, of course, bog standard cosmos in the white to red spectrum.

Dark pink cosmos.

I also bought a packet of dwarf cosmos in various colours, purportedly including a deep, deep purple.

Growing 2 types of cosmos, I kept both packets, referred to them several times during the seedling process, so I know for certain this wasn't my mistake, but an Unseen Collaborator intervention.

When the foliage matured a bit, the dwarfs looked more like marigold than cosmos.  The dwarf blooms opened this week & they're orange!  Every single one of them.  A fiery yellow orange!

Orange cosmos at bottom, usual suspect at top.

Searching 'orange cosmos' brought up photos of something with the same foliage as mine - cosmos sulphureus Cosmic Orange.  I don't know how those seeds wound up in that package, but they go well with the golden rod & the mint green raised beds.

My Unseen Collaborator certainly knows what she's up to.

Woodwardia beauty.

And that brings me to the end of my #SixonSaturday.

Thanks for dropping by.  I love feedback, but folk've had problems with the site letting them comment.  If you can't speak here but're on Twitter, I'm @lorahughes7.

Lets have a chat!

Oh, & don't forget, if you've got a garden, drop over to The Propagator & read his participant's guide.  You'll also find his Six, plus links in his comment section to other SoS gardeners from all over the world.

See ya next week!

A Garden Transitions

Doodle Disruptia.

          With plants transitioning from warm weather to cold,
          the garden has tons of colour.



          This week, I put on my spectacles to consider six plants
          in various stages of the process.










1.  Let's start with something still in bloom.  Before we moved here, this unknown mint spent years self seeding all over the place.  I like the way it & the corydalis soften the brickwork areas of the garden.  Here, both grow in the shade near the leaky the water tap.

Unknown mint creeping under the corydalis.

2.  The leaves of this spider fatsia are just starting to turn.  We got it earlier this year to fill a shady spot on the patio.  Although it didn't bloom, its foliage met all our expectations, as well as those of whatever has nibbled on it all summer.

3.  The honeysuckle, also on the patio, is getting a really nice yellow.  This fella gave us trouble during the rainy season because, situated between these 2 chairs, it didn't have enough ventilation.  I raised it on some bricks, then spread a layer of mould barrier grit on top.  There were few blossoms, but I was ecstatic that it returned to health.

Honeysuckle & Mizzy BunnyButt

As you can see from the mushrooms (& the moss on the cement), damp will be an ongoing problem with this little guy, so next year, it'll probably be either relocated or elevated more.

Mushroom in the honeysuckle.

4.  What's a garden without verbena bonariensis, eh?  It looks great on its own but plays well with short guys, tall guys, strong colours, pale colours . . . low maintenance and it lasts forever.  My kinda plant.

Verbena bonariensis in full bloom

Amazingly, these two photos were both taken this week, & on the same day.

And nearly done.

5.  Seedpods are to autumn as blooms are to . . . something.  Oh, summer.  A season that doesn't happen in the UK.  I don't know which crocosmia this is, as it's one of those guys I fell in love with in some long ago garden & have taken with me on my subsequent moves.  Here, it's thinking about laying down for winter on top of the purple sage - an old friend purloined from 2 houses previous to the crocosmia.  

Crocosmia seed heads.

6.  I'll end with new growth.  This sea holly created quite the stir when it showed up at our house earlier this year.  A single stalk ending in one nearly done bloom, it looked like a piece of art rather than something that grew in nature.  It died back soon after planting, but not longer after, voila!

Eryngium bourgatii Picos Amethyst.

And here, with Mizzy BunnyButt for scale.

Mizzy BB never looks impressed.

There's my Six on Saturday to last through the week.  Be sure to stop by The Propagator for his Six & links to many, many other wonderful half dozens.

Mr Big Nose Dog on his colourful walk.