It was sunny this Saturday morning. But it’s a bank holiday weekend, so of course plenty of rain is forecast, and its chucking it down now.

Before the heavens opened I had a lovely potter around the garden in the morning sun, and I picked six things to share with the friendly gang of garden bloggers taking part in #SixOnSaturday.

First up, the iceberg rose at the front of the house – where the first rose on this plant is beginning to bloom. I’m not completely sure of the variety as it was here when we arrived, but it looks a bit icebergy, maybe?? This is the first of hopefully many more roses around the front door.

On the pergola, the wisteria is in bloom, and it smells just wonderful.

My next pick is bit of a garden project.

First collect your sweetpea seeds on a sunny afternoon in early autumn. Grow them in a green house over winter. In late spring, they should be ready to plant out. And or in a tangled mess that takes ten minutes of patient untangling to sort out.

This morning I made a sweetpea tower for them, out of sticks and willow hoops. I was vaguely following guidance from the delightful Monty Don on making willow plant supports.

I used a few willow hoops I’d made last year and kept hold of ‘in case they came in handy’ 🙂

Using garden wire and string, and a couple of plant pots to hold the stems in place, I put the tower together. With lovely husbands help we push the stems of the tower into the ground, and jiggled it into shape.

I planted the sweetpeas at the base. Watered them in and wished them well. Hopefully this are will smell super sweet in a couple of months.

We’ve been enjoying rhubarb from the ‘fruit corner’ of the garden, where the gooseberry, blueberry and blackcurrant live. I like to make a cordial and compote from it, buy simmering it with sugar and water for about 15 – 20 minutes and then rubbing it through a sieve. The resulting rhubarb cordial is delicious as a syrup served with sparkling water or wine, and the compote is lovely with yoghurt.

My fifth selection for this weeks six on Saturday is geranium macrorrhizum, aka bigroot, a plant that seems to have invited itself into this part of the garden and is blooming beautifully there.

And finally, our blackbird friend has a beak full of food for the nest. You can see from my shadow just how close this little bird will come to us now. They’re charming little creatures to share the garden with.

So, that’s my six. You can see more Six on Saturday selections at Garden Ruminations.

The garden is currently getting a proper good soaking with a proper great British Bank Holiday weekend rain shower.

So I hope that you catch the sunshine when you can, and see your projects progress nicely.

Have a lovely long weekend,

Jen xx