Six on Saturday – 18/7/2026

Friday garden opening done and dusted, Saturday to go. It’s been an uphill struggle but I have coaxed most of the garden through to this point of the summer in reasonable condition. The next two pairs of open days are in three and six weeks time. I’m less optimistic about how it will look by then.

I’ve noticed a marked increase in the number of insects around over the last week, enough to attach my new telephoto lens to my new camera and have a stab at getting some pictures. I’ve not spotted anything of particular note but common butterflies are no less beautiful for being common. For a change then , I am featuring six critters instead of six plants.

If the significance of the repeated sixes is lost on you it can only be because you are new to the global phenomenon that is Six on Saturday. Started back in the mists of time by The Propagator, it is now hosted by yours truly. All it entails is posting a picture or two of six things doing their stuff in your garden this Saturday, accompanied by a few words, on a blog or something similar, and putting a link to it in my comments below. Still confused? check out the participants guide.

The alert among you may have spotted a comment from CAVERSHAMJJ last week; yes folks, The Propagator put in an appearance after a very long absence. Perhaps a six this weekend Jon?

One.
Red Admiral. These seem to spend most of their time with their wings closed and the near black undersides the onlt thing showing. Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’ was quite a popular food source.

Two.
Peacock. Both spectacular and comparatively common, I recall seeing it described as the nation’s favourite butterfly. (How do you land a job finding out what the nation’s favourite butterfly is?, asking for a friend) Good to see that my most recent Buddleja, in spite of its wretched name of ‘Butterfly Candy Little Ruby’, at least that’s what the garden centre had on the label, still apparently offers up candy for butterflies.

Three.
I’m still seeing plenty of Painted Ladies (that didn’t come out quite as intended) and they are particularly rewarding to have photographs of that can be studied and admired at leisure; they really are exquisite.

Four.
Gatekeepers are probably my commonest butterflies, run a close second by cabbage whites, but they are not easy to photograph. When they settle they almost always have their wings folded and they are restless, flitting from one flower to another as well as just flying round and round without settling. Verbena bonariensis serves up thousands of meals every day, good thing I didn’t pull up all three million seedlings.

Five.
I noticed a couple of days back that I have a wasp’s nest in the garden. It’s far enough from the main paths not to be too great a menace to visitors but may cause me problems if it ever rains and I want to get to one of my water butts. For as long as I don’t get stung I am happy-ish to have them in the garden; if they leave me be, I’ll do the same for them. I don’t wish to test my tolerance threshold to the point of turning on them. From the current comings and goings I wouldn’t judge it to be a big nest, yet!

Six.
I played around with my camera snapping away at bees and hoverflies and a bunch of other things and eventually the thing I was hoping for made a fleeting appearance. This I’m afraid, is the best I could do of humming bird hawk moth. For every one I see with a camera in hand there are 10 when I don’t. Or I have the wrong lens. Or the battery runs out. I can tell you it was taken at 1/800th of a second which will allow you to work out roughly how fast its wings are moving. No? my maths is rubbish too.

Earlier in the week I was watering in Sue’s cactus house when I was buzzed by a bee which turned out to be a leaf cutter bringing in a rolled up piece of leaf for its nest in one of the cactus pots. I turned the pot round about 90 degrees to try to get a picture of where it was going in but that threw it completely, it couldn’t find the spot and I had to turn it back. I would stand there for ten minutes staring at the pot and the moment I stopped looking the bee, or two bees quite often, would swoop in. Never did get a decent picture. The plant looks OK at the moment, I watered it as normal, if they don’t like it they should have thought about it earlier.