Six On Saturday - 10th July 2021

My sixth in the #SixOnSaturday series, inspired by The Propagator.  The excitement in my garden this week was the first sighting of a Stag Beetle this year. We've seen them in the garden for as many years as I can remember and they are one reason why I keep a small logpile going. I'm thinking of doing a wildlife special at some future date, but meanwhile, here are this week's six:

1) Morning Glory

Occasionally our local gardening club members swap seeds and this morning glory is the second generation of one such swap. I grew it for the first time last year and it was hugely successful and so seeds were harvested and are now producing their stuff again this year.  Given how delicate the plants are I was astonished just how high it climbed. One thing I'm planning to do this year is to succession sow in order to ensure that there are flowers low down as the older plant concentrates on producing those higher up. 

2) Sorbaria sorbifolia

What a difference a week makes. Last week this Sorbaria was poised to flower and here, less than a week later are the deligfully fluffy delicate white  flowerheads which are a hit with the bees. The plant has grown vigorously this year so I may re-think its location. 

3) Apples

This tree is quite simply astonishing. Both boughs collapsed in 2014 as can be seen in an earlier post. It is now almost completely hollow and the decaying trunk is host to an amazing variety of insects. Yet, somehow, and from somewhere in the sliver of remaining bark, it is still absolutely intent on providing us a harvest again this year. We thought last year was its last as we had only two apples. This year, if the squirrels don't gorge themselves too much, and if the weight of the apples isn't too much for the remaining tree, we are in for an absolutely bumper harvest. 

4) Hydrangea Macrophylla "Zorro"

I love the majesty of this lacecap hydrangea. It also has stunning near-black stems. Unfortunately, despite giving it its very own enviromnent - a purpose built planter built from pallet wood, filled with ericaceous soil, watered only with rainwater and fed only with food for acid-loving plants - I have failed to persuade it to revert back to its original blue colour.  Nonetheless, it is a stunning specimen which sits in the bottom corner of the garden shown on the left in the image as the early evening sun illuminages the seating area. I'll come back to the olive tree on another occasion. 

5) Lychnis Coronaria

This is another plant acquired via our gardening club. It has silvery foliage and these popping pink flowers which cheer up even the wettest of days. I've managed to propogate more through harvesting seed heads at the end of last year, through division and, noticed recently, through some self-seeded plants which I've been rescuing from in between the pavier bricks. Both halves of the parent plant that I divided are doing spectacularly well this year. It is sitting here framed by a fern and, in the foreground, an acquilegia plant whose flowers are over now but whose seedheads I'm waiting to mature so that I can harvest the seeds.   

6) Hebe 

Finally for this week, a hebe. This one is determined to invade the garden. Its base is actually right back against the fence and it has a "trunk" that could be mistaken for a tree trunk. For years I cut back the wall of flowers alongside the path. This year, having been poked just once too often by the straining branches and, to be honest, also soaked by the rain-covered leaves, I decided to see if it could be pruned. What I've ended up doing is raising its crown so that rather than walking into or round it, we now walk under it as we head down the garden. It has responded very well to the pruning and is now covered in beautiful blue and white blooms. In truth, it has got way out of hand but I haven't yet got the heart to remove it competely. I'm anticipating at some point that the weight of the top will be two much for the slender branches and that they will fail. Meanwhile, I've now cleared the ground in and around the trunk and have underplanted it so there's interest at ground level as well as at head height.

That's all for this week. Check out the participant guide if you want to join in.

The Plot

2002 incursion

The garden faces southeast. The woodland at the end, and the boundary to the south side contain many mature sycamore trees. Great for the squirrels to have fun in but not so brilliant when it comes to letting sun into the garden. It is on the side of a hill with the southwest side ground level probably around 1.5m higher than the opposite side. The soil is good old London clay with all the joys of ground movement and impossible digging conditions that that brings.

The section of the garden furthest from the house borders on to a local play area and in 2002 that border was breached and damage done to the fence and to the fledgling pond. For years therafter we did nothing to this part of the garden, concentrating our efforts on the bit nearest the house and letting the wilderness take over instead.

2014

By 2014 the two boughs of the aged apple tree had also collapsed. On the plus side, the woodpile formed a perfect environment for the stag beetles that frequent the garden on an annual basis. On the negative side, it looked a mess. It was also dangerous. The concrete paths laid by a former owner of the property had cracked and moved and were now covered in moss and ivy. During the 2002 incursion the fledgling pond that we had laboriously dug was filled with rubble and the lining was breached. However, it clearly retained enough water to enable a small  population of toads to survive. It was still damp, and there was sufficient undergrowth to hide under during the day. And my goodness, was there a fantastic food supply. In fact, how have I got this far without mentioning SLUGS.  Everywhere. Eating everything I planted. In fact it was only after years of concluding that I was a really rubbish gardner that I realised I'd actually been spending hundreds of pounds feeding lovely delicate plants to the slugs and snails.

Anyhow, I digress. Back to the "wilderness". That's where we were back in 2014, occasionally finding toads overwintering in the outside loo!