Summer has simmered down. After a cataclysm of rain last Saturday, things have been more usual in terms of temperature (20 deg-ish), not much rain, not too much wind. The summer carries on and late summer blooms are starting to appear. There’s so much colour now, and seemingly endless pruning and trimming. For my #SixOnSaturday this week, I’ve gone for wonderful red tones, I hope you like them.
Just about red, bordering on rust, my helenium is a bit late this, with just a few blooms. Loved by bees and hoverflies.

Much more on the pink side of red, I have a number of penstemon plants, all grown from cuttings of a single mother. I love the rich colour of the drooping blooms.

It hasn’t been my best dahlia year so far. This is a new one, and I think I have several of this rich plummy variety, very pleasing. A beer, a hoverfly, and another hoverfly is just coming in.

Just one edible this week. After a slow start due to some frosting of young plants early on, runner beans are now in full flower. I’m hoping for a good crop in a month or so.

Another plant late to flower this year is my favourite day lily. I love the way the rich red is picked out strongly because of the yellow stripes. This is the reddest day-lily I’ve managed to source.

To end this week, one of my favourite garden flowers, some of which will end up in my vase tomorrow. Crocosmia Lucifer. Fabulous.

I hope you liked my high summer reds for #SixOnSaturday this week. Some wonderful warmth in Fife now this summer (though I feel very lucky we are so far north, I can’t take real heat). Thanks to those leaving comments on the blog – sorry if I don’t always get back to you on time! The blog is going well, but it would be great if more folk on Mastodon, or other parts of the Fediverse got into tooting a Six! Go on, it’s a much kinder form of social media, not controlled by crazy billionaires. 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/. And I’m on mastodon @julie3dharris@mastodon.scot