Six on Saturday – Good Rains and Garage Sale Rose 10🌸6🌸23

It has been a quite a chilly week this week. Lots of very nice winter rains, wind and a grumbly thunderstorm, has made gardening interesting. But I was still out every day planting something. You’ve heard of the saying ‘Make hay while the sun shines’, instead here it’s ‘Make garden while soil is soft and moist!’ Winter is the start of my planting time, not the end. It’s cool and easy to establish plants in the wet time of the year.

I have been weeding the lower driveway, and planting a row of French and Italian lavenders down there. Plus some white Cistus rock roses. It is rather a hike, at 200 metres, that no hose would reach, so I give it an initial watering-can irrigate and maybe a follow-up drink and then leave them to their own devices. I already have some French lavenders successfully growing down there, so the probability of survival is high! It is the public face of the property, so I like to make as attractive as I can, in the exposed road location.

I’m most delighted with the new rose I bought from our town garage sale a few months ago. She’s had a belated flowering and looks to be a very hardy variety of some sort of groundcover rose. I planted a few of these in odd spots in my garden that needed a little colour, but were more challenging site’s. This one in the gravel footings of a shed and another under a standard rose. As long as it gets water and sun, there’s a rose for every position. But I’m a bit of a rose nut! 🌹

Last of the cute little Golden Delcious apples I’ve been eating daily from our tree. It’s turned out to be a bit of an autumn favourite! Their cute little Golden colour adds to the enjoyment.

This is an old fashioned variety of Calendula with raindrops. The raindrops are a delight unto themselves! I am successfully planting these Calendulas in a border around my back garden beds, for a little bit of winter joy💛…or a lot!

Last of the autumn roses amongst the newly burgeoning daisy display. Fire and Ice, Garage Sale groundcover and Unconventional Lady (great name, sounds a bit like me!)

Still lots of edibles around the garden. Granny Smith apples on the tree, beetroot, capsicums and mini carrots in the veggie pod. With some newly self-sown sown coriander, good for winter curries.

The cold winter weather has brought out the two- tone colouring in this Aquarius rose. They call this a grandiflora rose, a floribunda type, with multiple blooms per stem, but with larger that normal flowers for a floribunda. She makes great cut flowers, with multiple blooms and long stems, and us a very reliable flowerier in my garden, which she has in common with floribundas. Which often have less spectacular blooms than Hybrid Teas, but more of them.

That’s all from me.🌸 See more beautiful Six on Saturday gardens from around the world, on the Six on the Saturday tag, our host is Jim you can find his blog here .
Thanks for visiting. 🌸 Happy Gardening – Sarah 🌸