#Six On Saturday: A Happy New Year

A Happy New Year. I'm resolving to spend more time gardening, and to finally sort out the plant pots so they don't form ugly piles around the garden. The very mild weather is a puzzle to plants in the garden, with temperatures of 14 degrees here in the day, many plants are starting to grow. Leaves left to allow habitats for overwintering insects and amphibians are now impeding progress of plants growing through. Today's job is to empty the leaf mould from last year and get this years in to begin rotting down, so let's get on with my six for this week. 

I'm starting with an unnamed tree, I wonder if anyone knows what this really is? Before Christmas, I went into Waitrose and saw this tree advertised as a 'Nordic Festive Tree', it was then £22, I thought it would be half price after Christmas, and so it was, so I bought  one of these lovely trees. I've looked it up on the Waitrose website, they have house plants, artificial Christmas trees, decorations, but not this tree which the label says must be kept between 15-20 degrees Centigrade, so is an indoor plant. I like the look of it:, it looks graceful from all angles. Thinking about this, I suddenly thought it looked like a monkey puzzle tree, and looked them up, finding this website and discovering it's an Araucaria, an indoor monkey puzzle tree, so mystery solved! The place selling them is the Old Railway Line Garden Centre near Brecon, they say: 'Araucaria (sometimes referred to as a monkey puzzle tree) is a particular species that is required to be kept indoors as a houseplant - its got quite an appearance, similar to that of a typical festive tree with some people even decorating theirs for the festive season each year!

There are 19 species of Araucaria and these come from South America, Australia and the Norfolk and New Caledonia Islands in that region. Only one tree - the famed monkey puzzle Araucaria araucana - is grown outside in the UK. A few other species are grown as houseplants where the confines of the container restrict their size.'

It looks like a great place to visit.

I've followed Arthur Parkinson's sumptuous photos and videos on Instagram for some time, and was intrigued to read his latest book on gardening in containers. He covers everything from composts, seed sowing, favourite plant varieties in a highly personalised way. I loved the book which I'll treasure, and will definitely give sweet peas and dahlias more of a chance, it's a handy reference book as well as being life affirming and fascinating.

The leaves on this house plant, whose label has now disappeared, are lovely, it's easy to propagate and once a year it flowers, here it is in full bloom. I bought it at an NGS day at a garden in Shrivenham several years ago.

My next choice is the Euphorbia mellifera gearing up for flowering looking gorgeous with rain drops on the leaves

Cyclamen coum were buried beneath leaves, I've exposed them now to reveal quite a lot of flowers

My last choice are these lovely violas growing in a pot before the bulbs come through

I annoyingly threw away the label when I planted them, but I must look in Arthur Parkinson's book and see what sort they might be.

So there are my six, I'm going over to the originator of this wonderful scheme, to see what he's chosen. Worth a look and also to see what other people have chosen for their six.