Six on Saturday – End of May Display

28/05/2022

You know how it is when you’ve been away: Shove your mail out the way and dash out the door to check (and water) all your pots and plants! Feel a little bit sad about the things that have done their stuff in your absence, but grateful to catch sign of the display (e.g. our patio is covered in dropped, dried mauve wisteria flowers). Happy to be in time to catch today’s stars!

So here are some of mine, for this Six on Saturday on 28th May:

1) Lucky Dip Peony

It’s made several beautiful blooms in it’s second year, but I am not sure what kind of peony it is. An Itoh variety I guess, but not ‘Coral Charm’ (which I have elsewhere and is much more apricot/pink coloured). It is certainly lovely, so … let’s not get hung up on names!

2) Byzantine Gladioli

I love these small magenta gladioli. I have fond memories of them popping up every year beneath a fig tree in the avocado orchard, when we lived on La Palma. Now I find myself buying a few bulbs each year to plant in random places to enjoy their shock value: in the meadow patch, at the base of the deer fence round the vegetable garden, by the front gate post. They are a wonderful visual adrenaline shot.

3) Digiplexis ‘Illumination Flame’

This foxglove cross is proving to be fairly robust here in Cambridge, although it was overwintered in the greenhouse again. This year it is flowering earlier than in previous years and has consequently caught me by surprise. The main spike hit the end-wall glasshouse shelf while we were away last week, but it mostly seems to have straighten out again now.

4) A dark, delicious chocolate aquilegia

I have to pull and dispose of a lot of our aquilegias every year as we suffer from that nasty downy mildew disease that has swept around the UK. The plants that do well seem to pop up in odd places with good drainage, i.e. the gravel paths in the vegetable garden, driveway and the pebble garden. The prevalent colour of these survivors seems to be dark blue, but I have several really dark ones. This one is almost black.

5) The return of the pretty, frilly, coffee-coloured ranunculus

I was surprised to find that the Ranunculus ‘Picotee Café’ bulbs (bought from Farmer Gracy last year) have survived the winter despite sitting in our cold, wet clay soil and are now flowering for a second year. I’d have grown loads of them, years ago, had I known!

6) Iris ‘Benton Deidre’

Irises are so fleeting a pleasure. During our 10-day absence several Cedric Morris varieties have peaked and are now fading, so it was a relief to see at least Iris ‘Benton Deidre’ at full blast on our return.

And an extra photo …

A couple of readers were curious to see the nectaroscordum patch in flower (as a follow up to a previous photo of the flowers still hidden in papery wrappers). This photo is from yesterday. Sadly, it was a overcast at the time and the flowers are slightly passed their peak, but it still gives an impression of the current massed display in our front garden.

Have a great weekend, in, or out, of your gardens!

My thanks to Jon, The Propagator who hosts Six on Saturday, come rain or shine, run or garden. Click through to his blog to find loads more gardening Sixes to enjoy.

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