Today belongs to my students. They’re a pretty varied bunch of lovely people who have come together because of their love of gardening. And a reasonable number, like me, are resistant to technology. So, it’s very heartening to have been inundated this week with pictures for the blog. Far too many for a single entry. So, there will be more entries this week to illustrate their plants, their gardens, and their travels. Watch this space!
So, to begin, we’ve got images here from five gardeners.
We’re all getting worried about the falling numbers of hedgehogs, so it’s heartening to see this one caught on camera in the garden. Awwww….
From the same gardener, such a pretty little viola. No name, grown from saved seed, but what a cutie!
Don’t you just love the tissue paper flowers of cistus. It looks like the sort of flower you should stick behind your ear when off for cocktails!
From the same gardener as the cistus is the striking foxglove ‘Pam’s Choice’, complete with attendant bumble bees!
From our third gardener we have a picture taken today, but which somehow looks as though it should be in the snowy depths of winter. But it isn’t. It’s Aruncus sylvestris, with Carex brownii in the pot.
And from the same gardener, this lovely blue penstemon, in front of Hakonechloa macra alboaurea. Well, the penstemon was mine, grown from seed, and it’s all my fault that the label is long lost and the identity forgotten. My own plants, too, are long gone. They clearly didn’t like my garden, but they love it here.
And I’ve just realised I can’t count – again – but I’m going to add a seventh, because it’s very timely this week.
From our fourth gardener, orchids in a handbag, from the RHS flower show at Chatsworth. Who’d’ve thought it?
And finally (because I can), from our fifth gardener:
A hot display of Kniphofia! What a scorcher!
That’s it for today, but I have a wealth of images to follow up with, including the odd one or two of my own.
Whoops! Forgot to add this:
There’s my six for this week. If you want to join in (and why wouldn’t you?) go here and check it out:
https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/
You can see links to all the other Six on Saturday participants!
The Pleasure Gardener 
That hedgehog thing looks SCARY! I would not want that thing in my garden, no matter how endangered it is. Sea lions are protected here, but one showed up in the front lawn, and it wasn’t pretty!
Now that blue penstemon is something else! I happen to like kniphofia too, but it never looks as good as these. Are they in a climate with cool winters that take all the foliage off?
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Mrs Tiggywinkle? Scary? Nononono… They’re nothing like a sealion! Under those prickles, they’re about the size of a guinea pig. Or the head of a yard broom. And they munch slugs and snails :~))
As for the kniphofias, winters in the UK are usually wet and miserable, with a few that are dry and freezing. My kniphofias generally finish up looking very scraggly indeed, and in need of a severe tidy up. Having been shown around this garden, I think that there is a ruthlessness about keeping things up to scratch, but I’ve asked the question!
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That terror has a name?! What is a Guinea pig? Is it as big as a sea lion? (What I think of as a Guinea pig is not much bigger than a fat rabbit.) Skunks eat slugs and snails too, but we still try to keep them away from the home.
The kniphofia here does not get cut back or even groomed of old foliage. They tend to pile up on their old foliage and look tired by the time they bloom.
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Hehehe! There’s even a Mrs Tiggywinkle’s hospital, that cares for injured hedgehogs. They’re the size of a Great Dane! No, seriously… When they roll into a ball you can cup them in your hands. Provided you have thick gloves on, of course, because those prickles are sharp… They have no noxious habits. Well, apart from the fleas and the ticks. :~))
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Well, I still would not mess with one.
The skunks that we live with in this neighborhood are sometimes active during the day. They bounce about and want to play. I must close the door when I get out of a vehicle so that they do not try to get in. If I return to a vehicle with the door open, a skunk might be there next to it, looking up as if wishing to jump in. A skunk got into the Sebring and went for a ride. I did not notice until I saw it in the rear view mirror trying to get up on top of the back seat where the convertible top was folded up.
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Lucky you, having hedgehogs! We think we’ve heard them in our garden, but have never seen one.
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Whenever I think of hedgehogs, I can’t help remembering the Pam Ayres poem. You know the one about hedgehogs? ‘Squashed. And dead. And flat.’ So it’s lovely to see one trundling around. :~))
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Lovely photos, and such a cute hedgehog! Best, Beth
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Thanks, Beth!
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