As summer rolls on, I am still struggling to choose from a huge range of options to show here every Saturday. I have once again chosen a colour theme. This week I will focus on white flowers, often overlooked by those of us who love bright bold colours, yet these blooms glow right into evening and provide great contrast for cut flowers. Here are six wonderful white’s for my #SixOnSaturday.

First a patch of oxeye daisy winds its way through a narrow border near the garden path. Each one has a neat form, and a whole swathe is so bright and cheerful.

A lot less exuberant for my second choice. Yet potato flowers signify tasty dinners to come and have a delicate scent (which can be overwhelming en masse….near my home grow huge fields of tatties that offer a musky heady smell on warm windy days. Notice the tiny fine hairs across each petal and down the stems.

I didn’t realise that the mixed zinnia seeds I’d sowed would give me white blooms. Given the trouble needed to make these exotic beauties grow in this part of the world, I’m not sure this is my favourite variety, but is it one of the few that has made it past cold rain and hungry snails.

I am fond of astrantia. This is the closest I have to pure white. The tiny details on every flower are breathtaking.

Making its own way into the garden is a native mallow. Pretty, although can get in the way as it likes to pop up right along the path boundaries.

For my last this week, the cool weather is keeping sweetpeas happy. This one is highly fragrant, almost perfect white, with a tiny hint of lilac along the boundary of each petal.

That’s my #SixOnSaturday for this week. Join the sixes on Mastodon or other instances in the Fediverse via #SixOnSaturday, we need a few more folk to toot on the topic: come join us. All you need to do is find 6 things in your garden to show us. Then post on social, or add a link at Jim’s blog below. For regulars, our organiser is Jim at https://gardenruminations.co.uk/. Also on twitter @JamesLStephens. And I’m on mastodon @julie3dharris@mastodon.scot

So many lovely flowers all around the garden. We wait so long for summer and it flies by so fast: already we’ve reached blooming time for my favourite flowers of the year. Let me show them to you: this is a dahlia special for my #SixOnSaturday this week.

I will get started with one of the fancy ones from a posh online provider. Wonderful detail in the soft peachy petals, fabulous flower centre with red and yellow stamens, a real treat for hoverflies.

I am also very fond of the more traditional varieties, although these do turn out to be a struggle for insects to enjoy too. Here is the biggest, boldest red one I have, blooms are bigger than a large hand.

This one is quite probably a ‘Bishop’s children’: they can be grown from seed or from tubers and each tends to have a slightly different colour to the petals.

This one was chosen a couple of years ago for the name: ‘tangerine dream’. The actual colour is not particularly convincingly tangerine, but rather lovely to look at in any case.

Smaller flowers, traditional type again, WHAT a sumptuous rich colour. I could look at this one for hours.

To top the lot, I’m very pleased to have managed to winter the tuber for a wonderful, almost perfectly white cactus type. The plant is 1m tall, the flowers elegant. Apparently resistant to rain damage too.

That’s my #SixOnSaturday for this week. I feel so fortunate to live in a place that (so far this year) has not suffered from horrible heat, or splattering storms. There are few t-shirt days in a Scottish summer, but that is beginning to look like a huge advantage for the garden lover.

Join the sixes on Mastodon via #SixOnSaturday, but we need a few more folk to toot on the topic: come join us. All you need to do is find 6 things in your garden to show us. Then post on social, or add a link at Jim’s blog below. For regulars, our organiser is Jim at https://gardenruminations.co.uk/. Also on twitter @JamesLStephens. And I’m on mastodon @julie3dharris@mastodon.scot

Roses are universally popular, but I’ve never been sure. The blooms are gorgeous, yet the foliage and thorns can be a bit mmhhhh. This year though, the hot dry spell followed by cool rains have boosted their growth. I’ve chosen, perhaps for the first time ever, a rose theme for #SixOnSaturday.

First up is a non-fragrant shrub rose that I keep because there are always so MANY flowers. So many this year that the branches are weighed down to the ground. I’ve cut lots for vases, and there are lots more.

Against the west wall, in the teeth of the prevailing wind, a peachy little number loves the breeze.

Nearby, a rose is busy trying to grow through a forsythia that really needs a good prune. Not sure about the raspberry ripple colours here.

Hard against the west wall of the house is a climber that I need to keep tying into supports to stop it thrashing around. It rewards me with sprays of pure white blooms, these a little pock-marked in purple by the rain.

I love this new one. A David Austin rose, possibly Strawberry Hill. the blooms are fist sized, full and smell slightly spicy. Only knee-high this year, but I think this one will reach 1-2m.

Last, yet very much not least. This looks like a very old rose, clearly been here for many many years. Old fashioned, huge thorns and massive blooms (an out-stretched hand’s width). They have a really classic ‘rose’ smell. Perhaps I’ll save the petals and try to make rose tincture, tea, or syrup.

You’ll have seen from the water drops that our weather is….Scottish….I guess it is a relief that we’re not having the 40 deg C heatwave that is plaguing countries a bit further south. Great weather for growing kale, not sure about my squash…hold your breath for a veg-special coming on a Saturday soon.

Join the sixes on Mastodon via #SixOnSaturday, but we need a few more folk to toot on the topic: come join us. All you need to do is find 6 things in your garden to show us. Then post on social, or add a link at Jim’s blog below. For regulars, our organiser is Jim at https://gardenruminations.co.uk/. Also on twitter @JamesLStephens. And I’m on mastodon @julie3dharris@mastodon.scot

A mixed bag of gardening weather this week: cool and rainy has resulted in some sulking in the veg patch, yet lush growth elsewhere. The heat is back this weekend, along with storms, so hoping that the garden isn’t flattened by winds and rain. In the meantime, I’m faced with the luxury of wondering what to choose for #SixOnSaturday. I went for orange.

Having never had much luck with California Poppy, a few have popped this month. I do hope they self-seed this time.

In shadier spots, euphorbia have faded to a pleasing restful delicate orange.

Not so the nasturtium, who face the world with the hottest boldest orange they can muster.

Even in my dry cool Fife garden, it is proving to be a wonderful season for roses. Here are some surprisingly lovely orange roses in the evening light. They are sneaking a peak over the garden wall.

Back to bold and beautiful with a scattering of tall lilies in the flower borders. I usually grow many in pots, and most have been devastatingly nibbled by lily beetle. these have snuck past their gaze.

For my finale, I’m not sure if this dahlia is orange, but it IS called Tangerine Dream. It’s the first (of many I hope) to flower this year and is loving the hot dry sunny corner its pot has landed in.

Stay safe, take care out there, and don’t forget to follow the crowd on various instances of the Fediverse. Join the sixes on Mastodon via #SixOnSaturday, but we need a few more folk to toot on the topic: come join us. All you need to do is find 6 things in your garden to show us. Then post on social, or add a link at Jim’s blog below. For regulars, our organiser is Jim at https://gardenruminations.co.uk/. Also on twitter @JamesLStephens. And I’m on mastodon @julie3dharris@mastodon.scot

Summer seems to fly so fast. We’re in July, wow. Normal summer has returned to Scotland. Breezy, cool, showers, and lots of trying to stop plants being knocked over by weather. Colours are gorgeous. I decided to settle on fabulous pink for my #SixOnSaturday this week.

Summer wouldn’t be summer without pelargoniums. I have managed to get a range to overwinter in the greenhouse. Just have the one plant with pink flowers, and here it is (perhaps I need to propagate).

It is a great rose year. Mostly for others, I’ve never managed to do well with roses, and have no idea why. here’s a lovely little one, lots of fabulous flowers, but sadly no scent.

I have come to lovely hardy geranium, the plants spread well, cover the ground, are all shapes and sizes, and lots of lovely flowers. These ones are low growing, with lots of tiny flowers.

Somehow, clematis have beaten the drought and pulled out all the stops for us. Wow.

A new plant for me (that’s a rarity). Dianthus, satisfyingly grown from seed. I’m keen on these.

And as we swing into July, my garden still holds some of the joy of early summer. Foxglove.

Stay safe, take care out there, and don’t forget to follow the crowd on various instances of the Fediverse. Join the sixes on Mastodon via #SixOnSaturday, but we need a few more folk to toot on the topic: come join us. All you need to do is find 6 things in your garden to show us. Then post on social, or add a link at Jim’s blog below. For regulars, our organiser is Jim at https://gardenruminations.co.uk/. Also on twitter @JamesLStephens. And I’m now mostly on mastodon @julie3dharris@mastodon.scot