Six on Saturday 17/11/18

Another Saturday and rather troubling at how fast they come around because it means Christmas gets closer faster, and I haven’t cooked anything yet. The garden, my writing, and being a new grandparent all get in the way.

I’ve mentioned our Matchbox garden periodically. It’s a tiny garden that enables us to retreat to peace when we have to go to the city to stay. The kind of place, outside our back door, that is surrounded by bastion-like brush fences and a feral hedge that we’ve tamed on our side. We took over this garden when it was tired, unstructured and forgotten, and whilst the design is a little square and unimaginative, we knew we needed grass for the dog and mostly raised beds for our oncoming old age. The garden is beset with baking sunshine in summer and dark shade in winter, so planting has been challenge. Not only that, the soil is heavy clay which has made the raised beds a godsend.

So as part of SOS, here are my six.

  1. On the advice of Jim and others from the SOS blog-hop, I moved Pulmonaria Sissinghurst White to the shade and it has tripled in bulk and is looking so grateful. Its leaves are putting on such a beautiful show, so thank you SOS folk!

2. The Lamium (Maculatum White Nancy?) is so pretty, and what a partner for the Pulmonaria! Its leaves alone are stunning and then the delightful little flowers popped out and I’m so glad I finally purchased it for my shady spots. I can see the need to buy more for underneath the Solomons’ Seal.

3. The Solomon’s Seal has gone ballistic. And I’m happy. This back path is so dull, goes nowhere and needs plants that shout out. Solomon’s Seal does that. Just imagine it with the Lamium!

4. This is an unknown Tasmanian native self-seeded from the bush behind the school which is behind us. It’s growing out of the most microscopically narrow fissure in a huge rock and has grown significantly this year. It can reach heights of maybe twenty feet and so I’m going to attempt to prune it ‘artfully’ so that it looks like a bonsai. I might even use a bit of bonsai wire. Who knows?

5. Ah, Thomas the turtle. We found him in the garden when we bought the house. So, believing it was his home by virtue of adverse possession, we find he sits in the garden quite happily. I do encourage him to move periodically so that his view changes, but he moves very slowly. He’s been on the rock for over 6 months. Seems to like looking down toward the fern garden.

6. I’ve got to include this because I think the Aquilegia (Black Barlow, I think)  just looks wonderful growing through the miniature standard Acer and the Viburnum Plicatum.

To see many more global gardens with their SOS’s, go to The Propagator

It’s like reading Garden Illustrated and such a nice way to spend a couple of hours in the weekend.