It will be Sunday soon, so without further introduction on to this week's Six things on a Saturday.

1 Sedum

I read that Sedum are very good for attracting bees, hoverflies and butterflies, but I cannot say that I have seen an insect of any kind on these ones. Web searching does bring up many pictures, so it can't be a total myth, but here the bees are still sticking mostly to the lavender and Lythrum. Butterflies sometimes fly over, but don't find reason to land.

2 Berries

I really like these berries which form bright red bunches that contrast well with the leaves.

I believe it is a Cotoneaster Bullatus also known as a Hollyberry Cotoneaster and the berries do remind me of holly.

The birds are not eating the berries so far, but I believe that they do and this causes it to be quite invasive. There …

I bought this quite late in the year and it was a small plant, but considering that it is doing well with just about every stem flowering away.

The sedum is a slow growing thing, the flowers have been forming for ages and they are now starting to open. I expect that they have further to open but we shall see how long they will last for.

A sunny start to the day, so getting this Six on Saturday out early today.

Anemone fortunes reversed

I have two Japanese Anemones bought this year. The first quickly went brown and most of the leaves died off. The second grew well and had quite a few buds.

In the last week however, the second one (a pink variety Anemone hupehensis 'Praecox'), suddenly suffered the same fate as the first. Many of the leaves are turning brown and the buds have all wilted.

On the other hand the first ("Honorine Jobert") now has a flower, with another just starting to open. It is still a very small plant, but it was only last week I think that I was wondering if it would survive.

I've been watering them in case that is the problem as I read that they need a lot of water until they are established. Then …

Weather

Pretty poor weather for most of the month, two very wet days at the beginning of the month with large pools of water gathered across the graveled area at the back of the house. There were also a number of times when it was blow-over-the-lavender windy.

In the last week it has been mostly dry and there is not much sign of rain on the forecast for the next couple of weeks.

Its hard for me to say what effect these long rainy spells followed by long dry spells are having on the new plants. Some are certainly not thriving, but maybe they wouldn't have done anyway.

Flowering

So lets get on to what is flowering. This is roughly in date order, but only roughly.

• Lobelia 'Starship Scarlet'. Been in flower for most of the month and I like it a lot.

  

• Gaillardia

• Clematis- I don't know …

The muscari already had leaves when I arrived here at the beginning of the year, so I didn't know when they started growing. Well, around now is the answer. I'm surprised that they start putting up leaves so long before flowering in the spring.

Summer has arrived - at long last a whole day without rain and which was sunny and reasonably warm. I went to the beach.

Time for a somewhat rushed six on Saturday. You can see many more of these garden snapshots by heading over to the The propagator blog

1 Purple Loosestrife

Both my purple Loosestrife plants have quite a few flowers on now, enough to start attracting a few bees. Not anywhere near as many as the lavender though.

2 Polemonium

For a change I went to one of the chain garden centres which is like a department store with a few plants at the back.

Found this variegated Polemonium in a 3L pot for £3. It looked a bit sad, but I cut away the old stems and brown leaves and it looks fine now.

The leaves look very interesting so I'm looking forward to seeing it grow …

Today was a bit breezy. In a blow-the-containers-over, move the bins, make it difficult to walk kind of way. And yet there was a fair amount of sun and it would have been a perfectly pleasant day otherwise.

Did this used to happen in previous decades? Perhaps it is my memory, but it seems to me that in the last five years or so it has become a lot more common for sunny days to also be rather windy and for calm sunny days to become increasingly rare.

Anyway it is Saturday, and so it is time for six things.

1. Himalayan Honeysuckle

I rather like these shrubs for their unusual flowers. The flowers were quite popular with the bees when they were out. Now the berries are forming, they start out red, then turn black, both can be seen in this picture. It seems that the berries are …