6 – on – Saturday 25.04.20

In spite of life being quite strange at the moment the year seems to be hurrying by.  Here we are, almost at the end of April and at the end of another week of good weather. The concentration this week has been on getting the veg sorted and we’ve made good progress.  I hope you are all well and not finding things too tedious – thank goodness for the garden, eh?  Here are mine for this week.

Number One – last week you had the lovely pink tree peony, this week it’s the more usual yellow one.  It’s right at the bottom of the garden where it gets all the wind and weather and isn’t a bit sheltered.  It seems to be doing ok for now.  I like it less than the pink but the foliage is nice and bright.

Next are the veg. Three in one for you. We’ve planted parsnips, carrots, lettuce, spring onions, peas, runner beans and courgettes.  Only the radishes and beans are showing anything worth showing you.  No parsnips yet, the carrots are teeny tiny, and there is one pea – it may be the only one as they were old seeds, but I’ll let you know!  Anyway, here are the radishes (French Breakfast) and the runners (from a bag of loose beans from last year and I can’t remember what they are) before they went, and in.  I haven’t been able to get beanstalks so Mr OG improvised from some willow canes and prunings.

At the halfway mark is this shrub doing its rather beautiful thing at our front gate.  I don’t know what it is.  Can any one enlighten me?  It’s rounded in habit, small leaf, and masses of these small white flowers in flattish-headed clusters.  It has no scent.  It looks lovely, especially in bright sunlight.

This is the red maple/acer, now the tallest tree in the garden.  The developing leaves are complemented by this mass of tiny yellow blooms.  It’s not a very good picture as I was lying on a sun-lounger at the time, and couldn’t be bothered to get up!!

Next up is a weed.  When this first started appearing I thought it was bindweed and my heart sank.  On closer inspection, it’s got these wrinkly leaves, and they’re very shiny.  It has exactly the same habit as bindweed – long curling shoots winding their way through plants, but it is (fortunately) less vigorous and easy to pull up.  After some investigation online (Plantnet) I can identify it as black bryony.  Apparently it has interesting berries in the autumn/winter.  I’m afraid it’s not going to live that long.

Last week I gave you the beautiful Estella Rijnveldt tulip, this week it is my absolute favourite – Angelique.  We planted these last autumn when we had done no work in the garden so that we could be sure of a few blooms to look at.  Short of tubs we overplanted this one and the blooms are a little smaller than they should be, but still beautiful.  So soft, and that delicate mix of creamy white and pink makes Angelique a must-have.

So that’s my 6 for this week. Look forward to seeing all yours.  Stay at home, stay 2m away if you can’t stay at home, and stay safe.

If you enjoy my 6 on Saturday you might like my wildlife/countryside blog too.  It’s accessible from the Core Edge Journal tab at the top of the blog.

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The O.G.