I love the light nights around midsummer, walks in the evening, sitting outside for drinks. This year is a bit subdued as Covid finally came to the house: my partner is positive and needs his feverish brow mopping regularly. So, haven’t been out much. But that’s left lots of time for the garden. And I’m celebrating a midsummer #SixonSaturday by focusing on red flowers this week.

We’ll kick off with the cheerful window boxes of geranium in the courtyard house entrance. It can be a very hot and dry location, these plants seem to love that.

I supposed one could argue this rose is close to pink, but it’s such a lovely rose (with a superb fragrance) that I wanted to include it.

It seems rare, to me at least, to find a red shade loving plant. Here’s the one I love: astrantia.

I like to pick up bulbs, quorms, etc while visiting garden shows. I remember that these lilies came from the Malvern RHS show, spring 2019. Wow.

One or two of the garden beds are south facing, with poor soil, and stone walls behind: it gets hot and dry, even in Scotland. thus making a fine spot for valerian to grow.

Last, but very much my favourite flower this week, is the first of the dahlia. What a rich red, handful of joy.

That’s my six for this week. I hope there’s a good warm weekend coming to enjoy the garden even more. Stay safe, and don’t forget to follow the crowd on twitter and via the web from links to the originator of #SixonSaturday, the Propagator himself.

Wow, what a couple of weeks. I’ve travelled overseas for the first time in 3 years, to enjoy a couple of weeks hiking in the Austrian Alps. The flower meadows and mountainsides were just stunning. For my #SixonSaturday here’s some of my memories of the native rock gardens, to celebrate wild plants.

I’ve always loved to hike, though these days hikes take longer and tend to be lower. However, I managed to view a whole range of habitats in both the Seefeld and Achensee regions by walking from the valley floor, or taking the gondola to start above 1700m. The best plant of the trip was found in fairly low level (900m-ish) dark, damp, shady forest. We saw just one flower in the whole trip, but WOW…ladies slipper in the wild.

Orchids abound in the wet damp forest clearings, most commonly (and really common, sometimes 10-20 flowers in each sq-m) the pink ones.

In sunnier spots there were often clumps of white flowers, that I THINK are also an orchid species.

Another favourite landscape for the trip was the harsh quick-drying limestone. I had to look these up, but I think they are pyrola rotundiflora, appearing in large clumps at the very edge of limestone rubble areas.

Higher up, near the limestone peaks, anemonies appeared in the afternoons — though I’ve no idea where they were hiding in the morning.

Finally, and perhaps my favourite, the glory of the highest pastures, gentian were everywhere, glowing with blueness.

What a trip! I dreaded the travelling, and it wasn’t fun now I’m out of the habit, but what a beautiful magical landscape. By next weekend I’ll have had time to appraise what early summer has brought to my own garden. Stay safe, and don’t forget to follow the crowd on twitter and via the web from links to the originator of #SixonSaturday, the Propagator himself.

Rather than a colour theme, I’m trying a shape for my #SixonSaturday this week: pointy plants. First up, I love a solid-colour lupin, and I particularly love this rich pink one.

And for a cool look in a hot border, white lupins are looking lovely too.

Both the above plants were offspring of this next one. It does seem popular to breed multi-coloured lupins, and this one is fun, but I do actually like too plainer ones better.

I picked up a bag full of persicaria a few years ago. I’m not hugely keen on the foliage, it looks a little wild, but the flowers, ooooo, lovely lollipops.

This next plant is a bit of a cheat, the red hot poker is only JUST colouring up, but I’m already pleased with it.

Last, but very much not least, this is the very first of the foxglove. Gorgeous.

That’s my #SixonSaturday for this week. Stay safe, and don’t forget to follow the crowd on twitter and via the web from links to the originator of #SixonSaturday, the Propagator himself.

My #SixonSaturday this week was so hard to choose, the joy of the June garden. As they are so fleeting I’ve gone for an iris special. The first few of these are found in the pond. First, and best, a stunning white-blue water iris.

These are complemented by a variegated yellow water iris, not as delicate, though the foliage gives plenty of pond interest once the fleeting flowering season is gone.

Also in the pond, we allowed someone to give us a UK-native flag iris some years ago. Although lovely, they do grow and grow and spread and spread.

Now for the drier spots in the garden where iris thrive. I love iris siberica. There’s a deep lovely purple one that looks superb just now.

And on close inspection, I never noticed before that I own another blue variety too, this one with a hint of yellow.

That’s my #SixonSaturday for this week. Stay safe, and don’t forget to follow the crowd on twitter and via the web from links to the originator of #SixonSaturday, the Propagator himself.