Six On Saturday: And Another Fine Day

This morning at 8 a.m. the front garden had drowsing looks, the borders brimming with sun and bee-hum. For the first time I noticed that the pheasant’s tail grass, (Anemanthele lessoniana) had put out long and lovely flower stems. Such delicate structures. They caught the light, like the glint of spider’s webs.

I also noticed that the Artemisia Powys Castle was looking rather fine after a very slow start. The Echinops, too, in front of the living room window, had sprung up tall. Last year it was blighted by aphids, but now the flowers are at nose-height and full of bees.

But there’s a sense that something has changed. The sun is hot, rebounding off our red-brick house, and yet there’s the strangest chill too, as if a tranche of Arctic air has just floated in. For a brief time a huge black cloud loomed over the town. It made me think of rain, but actually it looked more like snow. Curiouser and curiouser. Anyway, it was soon gone, leaving us with sunshine and a brisk, cool wind.

Earlier in the week I was feeling fed up with the garden – not only with the heat and drought effects, but also with my general gardening M.O. Too much randomness and ad hocism, so much short termism. Where was the overall plan? I was also especially cross to find that many of our young apples were already spoiled. I pointed out the damage to the man in our house, he who builds sheds and car ports that aren’t car ports and is presently engaged in constructing a work table from his extensive collection of waste-wood. Summoned from shed and power saw, he duly dusted off his plant pathologist’s hat, and informed me that the Christmas Pearmains and Red Devils have been zapped by codling moths. Nothing can be done about it, says he. Hmph and double hmph.

But then there’s always something to be pleased with in the garden, once you start looking. It was then I noticed how well the Agastache AKA Korean Mint was doing. It is another of my happenstance plantings. I grew the original plants from seed two years ago. They were vigorous specimens while they lasted, and although they did not survive the cold, wet winter, they did leave the makings of many, if discreetly settled, offspring. There’s one monster growing beside the greenhouse. I think it stole all the rhubarb’s muck, leaving the rhubarb to wither away.

Other seeded plants are growing well in what, to me, seem most inhospitable spots, including between the cement front path and border wall. Here one example is keeping company with a similarly seeded lavender. Bees and butterflies love this plant, and I can see why. I’ve been cropping and chopping some of the tender flowering side shoots and adding them to salads. Agastache also comes in many pleasing colours…so there’s a thought…

Given the heat and drought, I’ve been surprised to have had some success with plants that I actually meant to grow from seed this spring. Just now making its presence felt is Dyer’s Chamomile (Anthemis Tinctoria). It is one of the most cheerful high-summer plants, and especially now as much of the garden colour is on the fade. I have it in various places, including a pot with some snapdragons and small hover flies on the back garden steps.

The bushiest clump is sharing the corner raised bed with a few butter beans, a courgette and self-grown sunflower. The above photo also includes the male blackbird. It stalks me in a slightly creepy manner, and when I’m not in the garden, spends its time tossing mulch out of the borders. We have had words.

But my star plant of the week is Lemon Bee Balm (Monarda Citriodora). The ones I’ve grown are still pretty small. I’d not been paying them much attention, beyond keeping them alive, and only yesterday did I consult the growing info that told me I should have pinched out the tops several times, and not just once, i.e. if I wanted them to bush out.

And now that I see their flowers, I long for them to be bigger and better AT ONCE. What fascinating floral structures they have, even by monarda standards. (As ever, note to self: read all the instructions).

When I did finally get to them, the growing instructions also told me that this plant is known to attract humming birds. Now how wonderfully fantastical would that be. And do you know – I think they just might…

Six on Saturday This week a scarlet zinnia and deep blue agapanthus are among the stars in Jim’s garden domain.

The Changing Seasons: This Was July ‘26

July has stayed hot and dry from start to finish, albeit with some slightly cooler temperatures this week. All around Bishop’s Castle the fields lie shorn, stubble baked to a crisp, and paling to the colour of Jersey cream. The harvest, then, is done, and a good month early; the grain shipped off to store or contract buyers. There will be no need to dry it. Moisture is the very thing that’s lacking, and so the talk is of lower yields and big farm losses. That said, not everyone has done badly. Some farmers have produced a good crop. Much depends on when they last had rain and the lay of their land. Also on varieties grown. Wheat is a grass with resilience ‘baked in’; it has deep delving roots.

Meanwhile, the Farrells have had the luxury of spending most of July in the garden. They have kept company with Gatekeeper butterflies, Sedge Browns, Painted Ladies, Cabbage Whites and a host of bees and hover flies. There’ve been a lot of moths around too, including the day-flying moth in the header photo (ID not fathomed, but whatever it is, it clearly likes phlox nectar).

The plant-life has just about coped with the drought, some varieties better than others, and especially those that were well mulched. In fact, the flock of self-grown sunflowers have positively thrived, and quite left to their own devices. The tallest one is 8 feet tall and with 8 flower heads. The gardener, though, has grown a bit weary with tending and watering. But on the big plus side we’ve truly enjoyed weeks of eating outdoors, shaded by the backdoor wing. Having supper outside every evening is definitely not a guaranteed summer occurrence in England. We’ve been feeling as if we’re on a foreign holiday, and all without transiting an airport. Triple bonus indeed.

There have been some good vegetables grown this month too. I’ve tried to stop treating our smallish back garden like an allotment plot and concentrate on growing things that work (given pigeon, sparrow, flea beetle and butterfly predation). So we have courgettes, French and runner beans, potatoes (not too many), tomatoes, baby cucumbers, herbs and salad greens. So far so good.

And hopes for August? Please weather gods can we have some nice and steady falls of good summer rain.

The Changing Seasons July 2026 Please call in on our hosts Ju-Lyn and Brian at Bushboys World

Six On Saturday: Pluses And Minuses

Another week of hot-garden days and no drop of rain. I’m beginning to wonder if I need to rethink the planting for next year, i.e. focus on the drought tolerant varieties I have already, and stop trying to grow things that scorch easily; or at least move the susceptible ones, like the phlox paniculata from the front garden to the back garden, where there’s scope for creating less exposed conditions.

In hot weather, our front garden simply bakes, caught in a heat trap between the house, the road and the cottages opposite. Also the beds themselves are surrounded by low concrete walls, plus there’s an old cement path between. And then there’s the privet hedge along the front, sucking up moisture and holding in the heat. But at least I’m now finding the clippings useful for covering bare soil.

Perhaps I’m panicking unduly. The lavender, oreganos and verbenas look to be thriving. Also the euphorbias, montbretia, yarrows, grasses and mulleins, sea holly and echinops are holding their own. But then I find myself staring at a forlorn looking cistus…isn’t it supposed to cope with this kind of weather? Maybe my shilly-shally bouts of watering have much to answer for…shall I, shan’t I…

Anyway, the prize for best looks surely goes to the unruffled, but multi-ruffed French marigolds ‘Brocade’ (1). The seeds came from the Bishop’s Castle Community Seed Bank Library. Local members share their seeds, neatly packeted and displayed in a tray on the counter at the actual library. You can pay what you like, and all donations are welcome. You are of course encouraged to share your own seed. This is part of a much bigger project relating to local food resilience, and run by Daphne Du Cros from a regenerative farm at Little Woodbatch, near Bishop’s Castle.

Another hot-weather plus: – outdoor tomatoes actually growing, ripening and tasting as they should. I only wish I’d planted out more than two Bloody Butchers (2). It’s an heirloom, early ripening variety. Usually my outdoor tomatoes are pretty disappointing.

The French Beans, Cosse Violette (3), climbing and dwarf, are also performing well. Only a few plants needed. Any crop gluts to be passed on to neighbours.

For some reason I usually get into a muddle growing basil, even though it’s a kitchen favourite. In the greenhouse it often succumbs to white fly, or gets roasted. Or we have a dismal summer (remember those?). So I’ve learned to grow a back-up.

Greek Basil (4) is a small-leaved, bushy variety, and an amenable, if not perfect stand-in. An eager grower in fact.

The obelisks of sweet peas are over. They have flowered to bursting since May. Finally, this week, the stems and leaves were dried to a crisp so I cut them down, trying not to uproot the young morning glory plants that I’d inter-planted and have so far been struggling. I’m hoping they’ll grow on, now they have some space and I can see them. But I was sad about the sweet peas finishing, and then remembered the few later-grown seedlings I’d planted out on our boundary wall. A pleasing find between our woodstore and next door’s garage wall: sweet peas and morning glory (5)

The sedums AKA hylotelephium (6) are exhibiting an interesting weather response. Instead of the wide flat-top flowerheads, they’ve opened wide, like gone-to-seed cauliflowers.

Their splayed stance looks like a plea for mercy, but the plant itself seems fine. It also has me thinking, stirrings of gardener’s plant lust. Sedums – known for drought-tolerance and adaptable responses – now there’s a group of plants to consider with fresh eyes…

But for now, a view of this week’s back garden:

Six on Saturday Still much to admire in Jim’s garden despite struggles with the watering.

Six On Saturday: A Change In The Weather?

The full-on-sun, no-rain weather continues, leaving the back garden borders with derelict looks. Some herbaceous plants have simply had enough. And now that the rambling cranesbills, Anne Thomson and Red Admiral have petered out, there’s a striking loss of colour.

But not everything is fading. This is the season of SUNFLOWERS, both annual and perennial. And given the sudden floral gaps, I’m happy to see this self-sown and grown colony that’s circling the sweet pea obelisk. The sweet peas, anyway, are almost over – more beheading done than picking.

The perennial helianthus have also started to flower. I have them all over the place, although they can have thuggish tendencies. There’s a pleasing clump by the greenhouse, and more around the edges of the garden where nothing else seems quite so keen to grow. I think the original rootstock came via my sister from our Aunt Miriam’s slightly mad Devon garden; family feelings are involved here. With any luck, they should keep going till summer’s end.

As mentioned in previous SoS’s, the magenta-purple phlox paniculatas have been flowering valiantly, even as their petals scorch. Now that the heat is not so fierce, I’m hoping the freshly opened PHLOX PANICULATA DAVID will have its time unscathed. It is a lovely plant with a delicate scent, here keeping company with stems of gone-to-seed valerian. It looks so cool too.

It’s also CROCOSMIA season. We have a big and brutish clump growing in the upstairs garden by the shed. It came with the house. I quite like looking up at it from the back door, seeing the play of light through the sword-like leaves.

But the flowers are suffering, looking more inclined to die before opening. This is anyway not among my favourite plant varieties; far too rampant. But the same doesn’t go for its more refined cousin, Harlequin. I love everything about this plant – its stance, the more delicate sun-suffused leaves, the airy looks of the flowers, those juicy ice lolly colours…

Number four is not exactly a success story, though it depends on your perspective. This is the GLOBE ARTICHOKE we did not eat and for obvious reasons. It is presently a very busy aphid factory under strict ant management. I nearly cut it down, but then this week it began to flower. Even infested, it’s still spectacular. The bees like it too.

Five is a shout-out for OREGANO, however it comes – culinary or ornamental. I’ve already featured the very decorative Kent Beauty here, but at the moment it’s the cooking version that’s the big attraction for bees and butterflies. Painted Ladies and Hedge Browns have been among this week’s avid visitors. Much like the helianthus, I have oregano clumps all over the garden, between the raised beds and filling gaps in borders while new herbaceous plants grow on.

Finally, a food crop success, although not a great haul. And not surprising given the weeks and weeks without rain. Also I only planted 10 seed potatoes. So here we have it – a bucket of ROOSTER spuds. They should keep us going for a while.

And now fingers crossed for the promised cooler days. There might even be some drizzle this afternoon. (Do I believe this?)

Six on Saturday: 18 July 2026 This week host Jim has been capturing the garden wildlife.

Monochrome Madness #64 Man And Monument

This week at Leanne’s Monochrome Madness, Sue Judd is hosting the theme: figures in the built environment. I instantly thought of above photo. It’s one of my favourite happenstance shots, originally taken in monochrome. Also it features the astonishing 5,500 year old prehistoric chambered tomb of Pentre Ifan in Pembrokeshire, which however you look at it, is one piece of epic construction. (For an earlier post with more info and photos go HERE.) Finally, there’s a bit of a yarn about that chap, who so obligingly turned his face to the sun just as I was taking the photo.

I had walked down the field to take shots that showed the extent of the earth mound that once covered the still standing stones. It would have been a huge barrow, an earthwork that would have taken heaven knows how many people-days to construct. That capstone, too, is reckoned to weigh 16 tonnes and doubtless would have taken some serious magic know-how to get it in position.

When I walked back to the tomb, I saw that the man I had just snapped was standing on the wrong side of the site’s perimeter fence. The obliging sideways glance had arisen from his attempts to find a place to climb over it.

Things did not look promising. There were hawthorn bushes as well as barbed wire. He was wearing cropped pants. We got talking. And he told me he had left his car further up the lane, having missed the official parking spot. But, he said, he was so excited to see the monument, he had climbed over the nearest farm gate, thus ending up in the adjacent field.

In the end we agreed a tactical retreat followed by a fresh approach on the designated path were the only options.

Monochrome Madness #64 Figures in the built environment

This week Sue Judd is hosting the theme. She has posted a gallery of several striking examples. Go see!

Six on Saturday: HOT!

Still hot today, but there are promises of a degree or two cooler than yesterday. And please, please, please can we have the breeze back. For now, the phlox paniculata are gently roasting, especially the large petalled magenta/purple varieties. Only Adessa ‘Pink Star’ is keeping her cool, here seen alongside the starry Neptune’s Gold Sea Holly which doesn’t appear to mind the heat.

In the back garden, most of the border plants are fading fast, apart from the bergamot/bee balm/monarda. Over the last few days, it has burst into life and bees, although I’m sorry to see the individual flower parts are soon turning crispy round the edges. (But then aren’t we all!)

The peripheries of the garden don’t suffer full-on sun until after mid-day, and this is where I have the beans – French climbing Violette, and a few Borlotti and Butter Beans, growing up canes and obelisks. The runner beans are growing alongside the compost bin, mostly Enorma but also a few St. George. They are now providing a pleasing seasonal screen along this short section of garden which overlooks the road.

Actually, I love bean flowers (almost as much as the beans):

Behind the runners, in the old apple tree corner, is a raised bed with the butter bean obelisk, a courgette plant and a self-grown sunflower. Today, the courgette plant has a quartet of blooms, plus one courgette ready for picking.

You can see this week’s number six in the photo above, on the right, beyond the courgette leaves. It just happens to feature in today’s newsletter from Beth Chatto’s Plants and Gardens. So here we have Aster x Frickatii Monch as it starts its season, and rather sooner than expected.

In the newsletter, granddaughter, Julia Boulton, who now runs Beth Chatto’s says of it:

“Absolutely the best Michaelmas daisy, for long display and sheer beauty: does not need staking, and is not affected by mildew. Deserves the best soil and position in the garden.” Its further statistics are: height and spread: 1m x 45cm; conditions: full sun, rich and fertile soil; flowering: Aug | Sep | Oct.

I’m not sure why I planted it in front of the apple tree. That spot does get dappled sun and then full-on glare at the end of the day, but there are much sunnier spots in the garden where it could show itself off to better effect. (Added to the re-do file).

Finally, a view of the a front garden bed, just to show it’s coping with 33 degree C plus days – the achillea ‘Moonshine’ drying on the stem, the allium drumsticks still doing their stuff, Artemisia Powys Castle, very much containing herself alongside a rather weedy apricot coloured Achillea, (Lachsshonheit) which I thought I’d lost, and a young Crocosmia Harlequin (bottom left) about to flower. Background support from Euphorbias, Santolina rosmarinifolia, Pheasant’s Tail grass, and crimson leaved heucheras :

Six on Saturday: For more views of Jim’s fabulous and mindfully curated plant collection.

A Thorn In The Flesh?

Look what I found among the pots by the greenhouse. It was in broad daylight too, and with wings in the butterfly position – but it’s not a butterfly.

It took some identifying too, this moth that likes to look like a butterfly.

Moths are unknown territory to me, apart from the stunning Elephant Hawk Moth that I once found in our Much Wenlock garden. There are over 2,500 recorded species in the British Isles, so where to start? I began with charts of the commonest species, thinking that wing colour might be the key. That didn’t work. It was only when I thought to search for moths that rested with wings in the vertical that I made progress. The habit, I discovered, was known among some members of the Geometridae family. Finally, I narrowed the search down to Thorns, and then to an Early Thorn Selenia Dentaria.

You can see some other kinds of Thorn moths here. They rest with wings at the horizontal.

The Early Thorn is a medium sized moth, the wings, as seen above, about an inch (28mm) across. It flies from dusk onwards, so I’m not sure why it was so exposed to daylight, unless it had recently emerged. The caterpillars feed on the leaves of deciduous trees, including hawthorn, and I found the moth directly below the hawthorn tree that overhangs our hedge. The timing was right too. There are two flight seasons: mid-February to May and then July to September.

I resisted the temptation to disturb it – i.e. in hopes of seeing its open wings.

In The Garden 8 July

So the promised heat-wave arrives and it is hot. Twenty five degrees Celsius this morning when I took the header photo. Thirty two degrees in the shade this afternoon as I write this.

We inhabit an urban heat island (UHI) of course, living as we do amid brick, concrete, asphalt and repurposed medieval stone, all the sun-storing component parts of old and ancient properties that sprawl, hugger mugger, down a steep, south facing hill. But there is a gentle breeze, which is something. I never thought I’d think fondly of those past weeks and months of blustery winds.

Now the next door cherry plum tree is no more, there’s little to no natural shade in our garden. But we do have a wing, strung outside the kitchen doors. It’s a good spot for dining out.

Above the wing, the red kite glides by, apparently seen off by the local jackdaws who live in the big ash tree further up the hill. The kite doesn’t seem too bothered, very much above such petty annoyances, but it’s hard to photograph, it moves so swiftly.

Up in that perfect blue swifts and house martins zip by. No chance of catching a shot of them. The butterflies flit away too, Hedge Browns living up to their name, patrolling the back hedge at speed. In the front garden, which is especially hot (it faces east on a north-south axis) Painted Ladies dash away as soon as they spot me. But then finally, when I stand very still, one stops for a long sip of Moonshine. Achillea, that is. They are very like tortoiseshells, but paler colouring, although this one is looking darker in the full-on sun.

Meanwhile, down beside the greenhouse, where the ice white mallow is blooming, the honey bees and bumbles are bathing themselves in mallow pollen, a full-body experience by the look of things. I have a sense of wanting to join in.

Above them, the self-seeded sunflower heads for the sky, the first flower beginning to open just this morning.

At 9 a.m. I was out emptying the last of the loamy stuff from my compost bin, spreading it around the base of plants that had missed out on earlier mulching attempts. And ‘attempts’ is the key word here. I have a garden assistant who is keen to make improvements on my efforts. It is currently a battle of wills: he moves it one way; I move it back.

It’s too hot for this game, I tell him. But he doesn’t listen. The search for bugs, grubs and worms must go on…

At least these days the robin only gives me the eye, and soon flies off if I’m not doing something actively worm-rendering. Back in spring when there were nestlings to feed, it would arrive at my feet and shout if I wasn’t turning over the soil fast enough. Sometimes I wonder whose garden this is…

Six On Saturday ~ Summer’s Here!

Come July and, in the bottom corner of the garden, the mallow Ice White has burst into flower. It’s supposedly a compact variety, and I’m hoping it has reached its limit. At the moment it is contesting space with the Polka raspberries, both parties clearly making good use of the farmyard manure deposited on the raspberry bed back in early spring. The individual mallow flowers are very beautiful. I forgive the plant for being pushy.

***

Another bright bloomer in the bottom of the garden is this orange Asiatic lily.

Last summer I received the bulbs by mistake (as mentioned last week). The chap who had mixed up the on-line order told me to plant them, rather than return them. Not to look gift horses in mouths, but at the time, this was easier said than done. I couldn’t think where to put them, or if I really wanted them enough to solve the location problem. In the end I planted the ones I most liked the sound of in a big pot, and popped the remainder under the apple tree, not expecting them to do much in a dry and overshadowed spot.

In fact I’d forgotten I’d done this. Anyway, now it’s flowering, I’m warming to it somewhat. It does look lovely in the late afternoon sunshine.

***

These days we’re seeing more butterflies in the garden– not only the annoying cabbage whites (hopefully the greens are sufficiently well netted) but also Painted Ladies, some returning Holly Blues and yesterday this lovely Comma butterfly.

It was zipping around the back garden at high speed, impossible to photograph, but then was finally captivated with the Erigeron Azure Fairy , staying just long enough to have its portrait taken. (Ann Thomson geranium looking on).

***

Since the late June hot spell, the weather has been comfortably tepid. The downside though is that we’ve hardly had a spit of rain. Now I’m panicking over the news of next week’s repeat frying. The recent return of blustery wind doesn’t help either. The surface soil is dry as dust and much of the earlier mulch seems to have disappeared.

I’ve been spot-watering plants that look stressed. Now, though, I’m in the middle of mining my compost bin. The grass cutting deposits from our neighbours’ very mossy lawn have kindly rotted down to produce some loamy stuff that looks suitable for another mulch campaign. The digging out and the spreading of same is giving the blackbirds much joy. They scuttle around after me, peeping happily, as they rake up worms and grubs.

***

July is also phlox paniculata time, probably my favourite summer flowers (if forced to choose). At the moment I seem to have purple-pink ones all over the place. I’m not sure how this happened. I suspect I’d put in a number of large plugs not long after we moved into The Gables. They certainly didn’t do much over the last couple years, succumbing to slugs and mildew, but now they have begun to bulk up well, looking good alongside Verbena. Their colour in the photo doesn’t really do them justice. They actually have richer, more wine coloured tones.

Also here on the front drive border between Oregano Kent Beauty and Lavender. Behind the deep red phlox is a clump of the taller variegated phlox, Nora Leigh, yet to flower.

And behind Nora Leigh, is Phlox Adessa, a delicate smallish-flowered white with a tiny pink eye, just starting out:

***

I also mentioned in earlier posts that last year’s several varieties of sunflowers had seeded themselves all over the garden. The tallest one by the old apple tree is at least 8 feet and still going. Then by the sweet pea obelisk there are at least six more sturdy plants (not so tall). I meant to transplant them, but they grew too large before I remembered to attempt it. And then I thought, they’ll be great to follow on from the sweet peas, and I can tether them to the obelisk if need be. Hopefully, they will keep going into the autumn.

This is the first one to flower. (Parentage uncertain).

Six on Saturday 4th July Among other wonderful things, Jim has some stunning tiger lilies on show this week.

Six On Saturday ~ Some Like It Hot

The stars in this week’s sun-baked garden have surely been the sweet peas. This when you might expect the heat to quickly wilt their delicate petals. No so. Over the past week I’ve cut one and two bunches a day. The house smells delicious. And yet back in the spring I’d been complaining about pigeons chomping all the main stems. The rotters were using the obelisk struts as convenient take-away perches. But it hasn’t mattered, and I haven’t even bothered to water them. But I did plant them out quite early in March, and I can only conclude they made some very strong, deep roots.

The latest rose to bloom is St. Cecilia, a repeat flowering David Austin small shrub creation with hints of myrrh fragrance. She’s growing on top of the back garden wall, where we have a wing canopy tethered, (between the wall and the kitchen double doors). We’ve been enjoying the soothing rose scent while eating outside.

The heat certainly didn’t suit some flowers. The blue geraniums began fading fast and the starry petalled astrantia soon turned crispy. This called for some general tidying. And while I was deadheading around verbascum Lavender Lass I found this…

…a mullein moth caterpillar. I’ve known them wreak havoc in verbascum chaixii Wedding Candles, and also in the tall wild flower mullein, so I was pleased to see it hadn’t eaten too much of Lavender Lass. She should flower again later this year. The caterpillar, though, is the most spectacular beastie, especially when I find it turns into something resembling a piece of crumpled bark.

The front garden has been surviving hours of full-on sun for over a week now, so I’ve been very glad of all the Strulch mulching that I did last autumn. I’ve only had to water a few newly planted out annuals and also the two small raised beds with the dwarf crab apple trees in them. Two plants that have otherwise been coming into their own with no attention from me are: Achillea Moonglow and Oregano Kent Beauty.

The oregano is trailing from the raised bed to the left of the Achillea (above). I also have some cascading over the ugly front wall where it keeps company with the recumbent rosemary. It’s thanks to Jude at Cornwall in Colours that I learned of its existence, and then to discover that there are other lovely ornamental oreganos. It will keep flowering now into autumn, the colours growing more vivid through the season. And of course, it’s also appealing to insects.

And finally, ‘hot from the press’ and opening just this morning, a very striking lily. I can’t remember what she’s called. She was anyway an on-line purchasing mistake late last summer, the plant seller getting their orders confused. When this was pointed out, he told me to keep the bulbs and plant them. I have to say, I wasn’t altogether thrilled. I’m not very keen on lilies. And I’m certainly not keen on the lily beetles that too often come with them. So I put them in pot and forgot them.

Which just goes to show. I shouldn’t have been so mean-spirited about an unexpected gift, even if I did find a nasty red beetle on it yesterday.

Happy gardening, folks, however it comes!

Six on Saturday Please hop over to Jim’s garden and see what’s happening there.

Tish Farrell

Writer on the Edge