Six on Saturday – Not standing still

27/03/2021

Growth in the garden is moving up a notch. The grass needs another trim, which makes it a nearly weekly task again 😦 . Leaves are bursting their buds and the world is turning green. It’s my favourite time of year … even if I do lose an hours sleep tonight.

It’s also time to find six gardening things for today’s #SixonSaturday, as per the rules of Jonathon’s blog.

1 Primroses

Primroses are so evocative of Spring. They re-appear every year and flower for ages, but they are reaching the pinnacle of their show about now, with great clusters of flowers everywhere you look. The first shot was taken in the grounds of our local church, the second is of our lawn and the third one is one of the cheerful lace primulas that was split into six small pieces in the autumn.

Primroses are reaching their peak show

Spring primroses

Lace primula

2 Snakes head fritillaries

The ones in our meadow patch are a bit hit-and-miss as usual. They did come up, they reached droplet stage and were just colouring up nicely when something started to eat them (pheasants, muntjacs, rabbits – could be any, or all of these). So I felt no guilt whatsoever when three pots of ready grown fritillaries (Fritillaria meleagris) joined the potting compost in my trolley last week. (Especially when I spotted a number of double headed ones in the collection):

Double-headed fritillaries, not so snake like, but it still feels like a bonus.

3 New island bed

Those fritillaries were promptly planted in our new island bed. Yes, you read that right, we’ve only gone and added one of those dodgy features! I know that they are out of vogue and most people remove them, but honestly, since we’d decided to install a clematis at the base of the trunk a collapsed damson tree, it seemed to make sense to get rid of a bit more lawn and gain some new planting space.

4 Tibetan Cherry

It’s nearly a year since we chain-sawed two massive boundary leylandii at the side of the patio and planted replacement trees (one holm oak and one tibetan cherry). We chose fairly large trees to accelerate the screening effect on the neighbour’s pipework on the side of their house. The cherry has struggled a little as the gap between the houses tends to be a wind funnel. However, it is budding up nicely now and this morning I noticed the sun catching the first signs of peeling bark. Brilliant! Look at that red glow. That’s exactly why I love them.

The most appealing bark: Tibetan Cherry (Prunus serrula)

5 Spotty leaves, pretty blue flowers and bees

Alongside the primroses, pretty blue pulmonaria flowers are multiplying rapidly. Enough to attract early-emerging, hairy-footed solitary bees (Anthophora plumipes). Over the last week I’ve spotted quite a few of these fast moving bees darting around the clumps, in search of nectar and females.

Pulmonaria is great for bees, especially hairy-footed solitary bees. The inset is a male hairy-footed bee at rest. You can easily see his hairy feet and his rather noticeable yellow face.

6 Mini Kiwi

The two self-fertile, mini kiwi ‘Issai’ on our garage wall are coming into leaf already. This is their third year in the garden and although hardy, I foresee a month or so of rushing out to protect the plants from frost to make sure we get a good crop of fruit. Fingers crossed.

Kiwi ‘Issai’ vines are bursting into leaf

So, those are my six. If you want to join in, check out Mr Propagator’s post, which includes links to meme guidance and to many other Sixes from around the globe.

Have a good weekend!

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