Six on Saturday – 18-11-2023

A mostly sunny day yesterday was a welcome respite from the grey skies & rain which preceded it for most of the week. I know some people love autumn – and I do enjoy seeing the leaves change colour – but I find it difficult to be enthusiastic about doing any work in a cold, wet garden.

So this week’s six is keeping it real!

1. I forgot to do a post at the end of last month showing the garden in all its glory, so the first picture will have to make up for it. As Jim over at Garden Ruminations showed in his six last week, the long view down the garden isn’t too bad although a closer look at the pergola bed shows that it needs a tidy up, when I can be bothered!
   The feline friend in the picture isn’t ours, but is a regular – if timid – visitor.

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2. But look more closely and you’ll see a soggy mess. The trend at the moment is for leaving plant material in situ to provide winter habitat for insects but I’ve yet to be convinced that’s a good thing. I will summon up the enthusiasm eventually to go and cut much of this lot down and compost it.

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3. Convolvulus cneorum, a fairly recent purchase and I dithered over where to plant it because I’ve lost one to frost before. I’m hoping that its current, reasonably sheltered location will help but time will tell. It seems happy so far.

4. A trio of crassula ovata a.k.a the Jade plant, which I use instead of a blind in the downstairs loo – they do a good job of obscuring the view in from outside and are far nicer to look at! I inherited these plants from the previous occupant of my office at work a few years ago. They were in a poor state but seem very happy in their current location, and require very little care. I love that the new leaves have a touch of pink to them, but wasn’t all that successful in capturing this in my second picture.

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5. Scraping the barrel a bit now, there isn’t much to look at in the garden at the moment. I came across these honeysuckle berries – the only ones on the plant – with a strange cobweb-like thread around them. I now think this is from bird nesting material nearby, it’s somehow ended up well & truly wrapped around the berries.

6. Ok, I’m struggling now! Cat pictures always go down well, and he is in my garden. I wouldn’t mind betting he’s the favourite of my six:-)

Thanks, as ever, to Jim at Garden Ruminations for hosting – it’s a difficult job when there’s so little going on in the northern hemisphere. Why not join in, particularly if you’re in the southern hemisphere and can bring some colour to the proceedings? The participants’ guide is here.