Hello and welcome to this weeks Six on Saturday.

This week’s blog is going to be a brief but concise one as I am spending more time in front of my laptop screen for work and I am getting as they used to say square eyes.

The nights seem to be drawing in with gathering speed at the moment and this means less time to tend the garden. The weather has been dryish for a few weeks up here but as I look out of th window it is raining and it looks a pretty miserable morning, as the saying goes is on Scotland it is a right dreich morning.

1. Sempervivum Hirtum SSP Neilreichii

This plant has tiny rosettes as you can see by the size of the grit and clumps of moss beside it. However,as you can see what it lacks in size it can be made up in beauty. It has candy apple colours and a pleasing symmetry. If you look at the big rosette the tiny green dots are new chicks that it is producing. This species of Sempervivum is one of the ones that does not produce babies on stalks but produces them in it’s leaves and detaches it self from the mother hen and when they are big enough rolls away from the parent plant and produces a new plant. In the wild most Sempervivums grow mostly on sloping hills and verticlal cliffs and it is a very efficent way to reproduce.

2. Sempervivum Display

For the past couple of months I have been moving most of my Sempervivums from single pots to bigger pots and planters to create multi coloured display of different shape, size and colour. As you can see by the mesa the work is still ongoing and I am always swapping plants around but feel that I am getting to near how I want the display to look. I have put them on wooden sleepers to save the old back when bending down.

3 Sedum Flower

Late August and September is when the larger Sedums produce there flowers. I have had not much luck with the larger Sedums flowering in previous years but this year has been a success. This one I bought as Sedum (Hylotephium) Stardust but alas it is not because Stardust has white flowers. It’s not Autumn Joy because the flowers and leaves are larger and the flowers are a more destinctive lighter pink. The flower heads are huge about the size of as side plate and act as a good landing pad for pollinators.

4. Geum Queen of Orange (Avens)

This plant is having a second flush of flowers which is always welcome. This plant is smaller than some of the usual popular garden varieties but is a more prolific flowerer. The colour is really eye-catching and is of a rich orange you don’t see often in gardens.

5. Preparing my Echeverias for winter.

I lost alot of my semi hardy succulents last winter due to being busy at work and illness which forced me to leave some of them in the open. This year however I am not going to make the same mistake and have made great strides in putting plants into more smaller plastic and square pots which will be easier to store in mini greenhouses and coldframes.

6. Wood Prices

I hasten to say this photo is not in my tiny garden but merely a stock photo from the internet. Has anyone else noticed that the price of wood is going through the roof. As I mentioned in a previous blog I am having a new raised border built in my front garden and was planning in having it made with sleepers. I bought the sleepers that are featured in post no 2 about 3 years ago for approximately £30 each incl Vat from a builders merchant. Now they are £55 to £60 each. I suppose all the upheaval of the last few years be it Brexit or the virus is making a difference. I am now going to use Stones to build the border and I have a couple of irons in the fire with local business and land owners.

That’s my six for this week.  It looks like The weather this weekend is going to be as they say changeable in the extreme so gardening opportunities might be limited.

Until next week goodbye