Six On Saturday 26/10/2019

What a week! Crazy storms with enough rain to see us through winter, needless to say our lane has been washed away to huge gullies and bedrock AGAIN. The gardens are grateful though, and they’re looking extremely green and lush, it never ceases to amaze me the difference in plants when they get real rain instead of tap water. Missing days at work due to the weather means we’ve spent the rest of the week doing extra hours to play catch-up but the ground is now softer which makes weeding a far easier task.
Anyway, hope your week has been a good one, here’s my Six on Saturday, as always it’s hosted by The Propagator at https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/2019/10/26/six-on-saturday-26-10-2019/
Join in and add a link to your #SixOnSaturday

1) My first this week has to be propagating, these are pieces that were broken when a neighbour’s succulent plant was blown from their upstairs window ledge into our garden in the Mistral, luckily the pot didn’t break but there were lots of plant pieces scattered about that I just couldn’t leave, so they were brought inside, dried for a few days then laid on soil, out of the forty broken off pieces twenty seven have so far produced roots, another couple of weeks or so and I’ll pot them up - if there’s one thing I love more than new plants, it’s new plants for free!

2) Sedum Panache - this and numerous other succulents are in pots waiting to be put into the cactus bed at our main work garden, they’ve been hanging around in their pots until the weather cooled down to be planted, thankfully temperatures are sticking around 22°c -24°c now so it’s ideal for getting them in, this one is flowering at the moment and is so pretty, I adore the flowers on cactus and succulents, always such a contrast to how they usually look.

3) Yucca - talking of flowering, it’s that time of year when the yuccas in our area are all in full bloom and boy do they put on a striking display! So big and bold yet the individual flowers look so delicate. They most definitely aren’t delicate though as they’ve survived the crazy storms and Mistral winds this week with minimal damage, just the odd spike can be seen bending over where the wind was a little too strong for it. These ones are just outside our garden next to our car parking area, I snapped the photo in between downpours at the start of the week.

4) Magnolia seed pods - Oh boy do I love these, they’re simply stunning, last year was the first time I’d ever noticed them, amazing that I managed to get to my mid 50s without doing so, they look like Christmas decorations (apologies for using the ‘c’ word in October).

5) New plants - even though plants here are far more expensive than they are back in England, sometimes you just can’t resist. This week I bought a eucalyptus for my garden along with another citrus, this one is a clementine - I will never have enough citrus trees. 

I love eucalyptus and even though I’ve spent years growing plants for health and well being purposes, as well as for culinary use I have never owned a eucalyptus, no idea why as they’re extremely useful, not to mention lovely to look at. 

I also bought numerous houseplants this week to add to the indoor jungle, the OH is convinced we’ll soon have parrots moving in! 

6) Tools - more new tools this week, this time secateurs and snips that are just the right size for my hands. I have several pairs of secateurs but all are a bit too big for me to use comfortably, these are the perfect fit, you can see the difference in size in the photo.

As much as I love them though the secateurs have a loose closing clip which slips when I’m using them and stops the blades from closing together, it’s ok if I’m using them upright but if they’re facing sideways or down when in use then it prevents me cutting and is very annoying so I might be taking them back to get them changed, not what I expect from Spear & Jackson ☹️

Well I hope you enjoyed my #SixOnSaturday, there’ll be another six next week but until then, have a great week.

Dizzy