Good morning and welcome to SOS.

What is happening with WordPress on the IPhone.  It is driving me mad.  It keeps deleting spaces at end of sentences and returns.  I got into a good routine writing the blog on the works IPhone but I have had to resort to the laptop.

Well it didn’t happen!  England didn’t make it to the World Cup final. Fallen at the second last hurdle again but at least this time it was not on penalties.  Well done to Gareth Southgate for giving is hope again.  On a plus side at least I can concentrate on the garden more.

I spent the weekend planting plants that are struggling for space on other parts of the garden and some of the perennials I am growing from seed in the new bed I am going to build properly on the in the autumn . I already had some soil piled there so I added some compost and set to work. I have also decided to make the bed out of sleepers and I am currently pricing these up.

It’ s an on call at work weekend for me at work so this SOS will be short and sweet.

Here is my Six.

1. Geum Lady Strathden

One of my favourite Geums.  A strong, bold flower the slower stems flop and weave amongst the other plants.   It is starting to get a little bit straggly so may split it in the Autumn.

2. Sedum Oreganum

These 2 photo’s show how soil condition effects a plants growth.   One of them (left) is in my dry trough with around a 60 40 mix of gravel and compost.   The second one is planted in a planter with a much higher percentage of compost.  They are a meter from each other.  A native from the West coast of America (Oregon) this is a fast growing Stonecrop.  For it’s size fairly big yellow flowers for the size of leaf.  It is becoming a staple of many parts of my garden.

3.  Sedums in a Row

These 3 sedums are in my mini gravel garden.  From the front we have Sedum Makinoi, Sedum Thundercloud and Russian Stonecrop (Sedum Kamstachicum).   I am particularly looking forward to the Sedum Thundercloud flower.   As I said last week the mini gravel garden is a great success and I am looking to expand it next year.

4.  An unusual combination

I have bought to many Dianthus this year  so I have decided to put some in a hanging basket until I find space.  My hanging baskets have had mixed results this year.  Some of them have been a disaster and some of them are blooming.   I did experiment with Petunias bought from 2 different supermarkets, Morrisons and Marks and Spencers and by far the best was the ones from Morrisons.  In this picture we have Clematis Madame le Bouchard and Dianthus Whatfield Gem.  I particularly like the second picture.  Clematis Madam la Bouchard is a Clematis I actually killed last year by cutting through the main stem at the bottom of the plant.  It had been in the garden for more than 16 years so I bought a new one from Thorncroft Nurseries in the Spring.  This is by far the most vibrant clematis next year and is planted in a big pot

.5. Sempervivum Bronco

This hen is a beast!   As you can see the rosette is a good 18 – 20cm across.  I bought it at Kalzie Gardens last week.  TBH it was in a pretty bad state.  It was extremely dry and brittle but after a good soak in a bucket of water and I removed several damaged leaves it is now doing really well.  Hopefully next years there will be lots of little chicks.

6. Coreopsis Heliopsis Grandiflora

This is a bit of a success story the plant was getting eaten to death in one of the fromt garden borders so I put it in a large pot with good compost and as you can see it is thriving.   This will be going at the front of my main bed next year

Well that’s my SOS.   I am pleased as punch at the moment because I have had delivery of an Orostachys Spinosa this morning and it is in really good nick.  Photo’s to follow.

As always to find out how six on Saturday works please follow the following link The Propagator. The don of six in Saturday.

That is my SOS for this week.  Until next week bye for now.