Five Saturday’s in July, how did we get to the end already? A more normal summer has resumed in Fife this week, a little rain to perhaps bring the flower beds back to life , and properly cool. Lots to see now, on both the veg and flower fronts. I’ve hoped to add a little sunshine by going for a yellow theme for this week’s #SixonSaturday.

Starting with edibles, I’ve tried to do a bit of successional planting of tomatoes this year. The first of the crop are now ready to eat, while a few plants are still producing flowers. Finger’s crossed there will be enough light for these to flourish.

From the greenhouse to the garden. Apparently ‘Fremontodendron’ (from California) can be tricky to grow in the UK. My small tree sits on a south facing wall, and probably loves the dry and sandy conditions. It also somehow manages to weather the fierce westerlies and rain of a Scottish winter.

Most years I bring on 6 or more courgette plants, assuming that a few will droop and die on cold spring/summer nights. They’ve all made it this year, and here’s a lovely yellow fruit from courgette ‘atena’. I’m inundated already, anyone got any recipes?

Although not the regular St. John’s Wort, I think this is also a hypericum. In a usual summer, it flowers for weeks. This year, most flowers got hammered by the heatwave. I’m going to try more deadheading in the hope that they might have another go. This flower comes with a free hoverfly.

To edibles again. I planted a few squash ‘Kuri’ this year, but only in early July. I hope they will pull themselves together and get fruiting. The flowers have started, fingers crossed.

This week’s sixth choice is a snap of monkey flower. Living near the pond, this plant has spread about 2/3 of the way round. It offers a blast of summer colour and lots of nectar for the bees. Wonderful.

That’s my #SixonSaturday Have a good weekend. Stay safe, take care out there, and don’t forget to follow the crowd on twitter and via the web from links to the originator of #SixonSaturday, the Propagator himself.

How hot did it get in your garden? I felt privileged to be in Scotland during the heat emergency. Here it got to 29 deg C, with what I think of as ‘proper hot weather’ for just two days. I must admit to enjoying to novelty, though inspection of the garden has since revealed quite a bit of stress: not least because we have not had rain for weeks! In honour of what I hope is a very rare phenomenon, here are some hot reds for this week’s #SixonSaturday, to commemorate the heatwave.

Most interesting first? I picked up a few cala lily quorms at the Chelsea Flower Show in May. This one is a gorgeous rich red, as are its stems.

Despite the heat, some careful feed and watering has allowed a few sweetpeas to keep going, one of them a rich red (shame the resting hoverfly wasn’t quite in focus!).

I’ve shown these as one of my six recently, but here they are again, as I can’t look at them enough. I love a big blousy bright red dahlia.

A couple of edibles next. I kept the greenhouse as cool as I could with wide open doors and windows, and regular dousing of the floor with buckets of water (still great to work at home sometimes!). The tomatoes loved it, and the first few are ripening now.

The heat also seems to have boosted the beans. This year, I have fewer plants, but each one is producing swathes of red flowers. It’s almost time for beans.

Last, one of my favourite flowers of the summer (though I can’t quite work out how we got here so fast) has just started to bloom. Crocosmia lucifer is here.

That’s my #SixonSaturday Have a good weekend, the weather here is back to normal, I’ll be harvesting lots of berries which instantly ripened in last week’s heat. Stay safe, take care out there, and don’t forget to follow the crowd on twitter and via the web from links to the originator of #SixonSaturday, the Propagator himself.

Fife is SO dry, and even here we’re going to hit mid-high 20 degC in the next 4 days. It seems that the dry spell has brought on the dahlias, so THIS is the week for my first dahlia special #SixonSaturday of the season. I bought a couple of mixed collections, and have some old favourites, from tubers kept from previous years, and even from some plants that have been grown from seed. The absolute classic is a bright red, full-on perfect dahlia.

Some of the new plants have flowers that are gorgeously hard to describe, like this one, a sort of peach-to-red, with a dark centre that will end up with little yellow flecks (I think).

A small plant last year, now I have a 30cm high, 20cm wide robust plants with a very simply single-colour pink flower, the bees love this one.

Back to a newby, I was going to call this one peach-red. The complexity is stunning, starting from the bi-coloured outer petals, to the inner flame-like small petals, and captivating wine-yellow centre. I think it’s my new favourite.

Next up, another simple beauty, pink with a hint of yellow near the centre. Could be ‘Bishop’s Children’, she’s not quite a perfect specimen, but illustrates a hoverfly getting drunk on her nectar.

Last, another classic full, yet simple dahlia, in a pale orange-yellow. I got one plant last year, it flowered for many many weeks, it’s much bigger this year, and has just started to flower for me.

That’s my #SixonSaturday Have a good weekend, I’m off to give my MANY pots a good long drink and a feed, as they will need to weather the incoming heat next week. Stay safe, take care out there, and don’t forget to follow the crowd on twitter and via the web from links to the originator of #SixonSaturday, the Propagator himself.

Thank goodness for the garden. I’ve been at home for a week with my first experience of Covid. One I’d rather not have enjoyed. The garden has been a great place to sit and fight the virus, and is now easing me back into some gentle exercise. Lots to do now that we’re into July. I’ve gone for pink this week, from the slightest hint, to the hottest intensity.

Starting with just a reminder of pink, bits of the complex astrantia flower are pink, making for an intricate pinkish flavour.

From pink, fading to white as the flowers finish. A rambling rose rambles up its pole to form a 3x3m cloud of fragrant pinkness.

For years I didn’t think much about snapdragons. Last year a friend gave me a few seedlings, which have run right through a winter into flowering glory in their 2nd season.

Hardy geranium fill many of my garden’s extensive borders. This one flower for weeks and weeks with small, but copious blooms.

I’m suspicious that dahlia are going to be my ‘flowers of the year’. This is the third type to flower so far, and WOW….pink, with hints of peach right through to a wine-red centre.

And for my last flower this week, we’re back to the humble rose. I don’t know the variety but it has a strong ‘rosy’ perfume and is SO hot pink that the camera can only handle pics taken on a part-shady morning. 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, take care out there, and don’t forget to follow the crowd on twitter and via the web from links to the originator of #SixonSaturday, the Propagator himself.