Six on Saturday – October Joy

The last few days have been rather dull and soggy so I’ve been running out in between the rain showers to snap pictures of the garden for this week’s Six on Saturday. It may be most definitely Autumn now but there is still so much to behold in the garden if we can but find it, in between the showers!

Let’s start with something that is hanging on from Summer with no signs of giving up its colourful display! This Petunia is still looking good in a pot on the deck. I didn’t buy any Petunias earlier on this year as they do need deadheading regularly and I knew this Summer I did not need to buy any more plants to add to the dead-heading workload but this beauty was bought in August at a bargain price. Looking half-alive, half-on-the-way-to-being-dead when I bought it, a quick deadhead, water and feed brought it back to life and it is so lovely to still have colour from something we consider to be a Summer bedding plant.

At the other end of the scale, there’s the Christmas Rose, Helleborus Niger, which also should not really be in flower now, not because it is too late in the season but because it is too early! Last year I was lamenting the fact that it did not flower until after Christmastime so this year, that gorgeous white flower is first to the party! Nevertheless, a bloom is always welcome wherever we find it!

Still going strong are the red Pelargoniums in the pots and in the borders. You may remember that these were also bargain find Pelargoniums, languishing for a drink on a clearance shelf of B & Q! Normally retailing at 3 for £10, I brought 10 home for £10. They were popped into pots and empty spaces in the borders I’ve enjoyed them for their foliage which is in the borders has masked some blank spaces as other things die back. They are now rewarding me for being saved from the skip with fabulous bursts of the brightest red which just pop as dusk falls.

And it looks like like there are plenty more blooms to come!

My next two picks for this week’s #sixonsaturday are from seeds sown outside, right at the end of June. I had lots of seed packets lying about and no time to encourage seeds to germinate and grow well indoors as we were off on holiday so I literally, just threw the remnants of various seed packets in a new raised bed, which I’d run out of time to use this year for veg.

One of the most joyous things about gardening is when you have sown or planted something and then almost forgotten about it only to be blown away when you see something unexpected! I came out of our back door a few weeks ago to see these emerging buds which then burst into the darkest, richest colour, almost a claret colour. The variety is Sarah Raven’s ‘Black Beauty’ and I’m tempted to sew some more of them for next year dotted around the borders. The only downside is that in my windy garden, the petals do not last for long!

A happy accident, although I would like to pretend that I’d planned it, was throwing Gardeners’ World free Cornflower ‘Black Ball’ seeds in next to the poppies and look at the colour match – I so wish I had planned it in a border! Although they’ve grown in bends and curves and not tall and straight, they are just reacting to the conditions to which they have been assigned: fighting for space, light and protection from the wind. I might try these towards the back of a border for next year to compliment the Black Beauty Poppies, how fabulous would they look together?

This year was the first time ever for the Choisya Sundance to bloom way back in May! It has been in the ground for three or four years and I love it as an evergreen to add structure and Winter interest to the borders. I had just assumed that it was never going to flower and boom, just when I had stopped looking for the flowers, they appeared in May: small, white, delicate and pretty! And here we are in October with a tiny, second flush about to appear. It just goes to show that some garden guests take a long time to settle in before deciding if this is the spot for them to be at home!

It may get harder as October starts to bite to find things to photograph in your garden but do get out there with your camera or phone and #snapyourgarden – it fair cheers up a dull, Autumnal day.

Do feel free to me leave a comment on these six as I love to chat about plants! Enjoy reading other #SixonSaturday blogs for information and inspiration as gardeners around the world share six things from their garden on a Saturday. #SixonSaturday is hosted by The Propagator, and you’ll find lots of links on Twitter on the #SixonSaturday hashtag. You can find The Pink Wheelbarrow on Twitter at @PinkWheelbarrow.