Has to be said that when I opened the cupboard of horticultural delights for this SoS it was looking pretty bare. It’s a good thing that hopes, dreams and disasters are admissible because that’s what’s on offer from me this week. I’m counting on everybody else’s contributions, linked from The Propagator, for an uplift.
One.
Cuttings; I think I can chalk this up as a partial success. When you take semi-ripe cuttings in autumn you know you have a long wait before success becomes evident. Failure can show up more quickly, but not always. New growth in spring is a fairly good indication that roots have been produced. I have a very fragrant Rhododendron, ‘Fragrantissimum’ or ‘Lady Alice Fitzwilliam’, and a very good form of Enkianthus campanulatus. Both filched from the park where I volunteer a day a week. Remuneration, I call it.
Two.
Primula ‘Dawn Ansell’. The double primroses I bought have largely recovered from their trip from France; this one is flowering nicely. I’m still waiting for planting out weather.
Three.
Dahlia seedlings. I collected seed from two of my dahlias last summer, ‘Orange Cushion’ and ‘Veritable’. Sown on the 11th, they’re well away. I sowed them too thickly and will need to prick them off very small before the roots get inextricably tangled. Some of the seedlings of ‘Orange Cushion’ I did a couple of years ago turned out better than passable so I was keen to try some more.
Four.
Camellia of the week is ‘Fiona Colville’. This was a sport of ‘Donation’ that arose at Penheale Manor in Cornwall in 1960. It is a considerably deeper colour than ‘Donation’ and completely stable. ‘Donation’ could well be the most widely grown camellia in existence; nobody has ever heard of ‘Fiona Colville’. Actually, that’s not quite true because the lady herself still lives at Penheale, which is a great garden, open occasionally, and I’m sure people know her, if not her eponymous camellia. This one is in a pot and is going to a garden nearby.
Five.
Damn. There’s a small awkward area between my shed and fence, stuffed with the sort of clutter that places like that attract. The fence post has rotted out. It was concreted in (not me, never) and is at the edge of a concrete slab. The last one took me half a day. And I fished the pump out of that big black water tank this morning. Toast.
Six.
Euryops pectinatus has had a long run without a hard winter but has been well and truly clobbered. I’ll hack it back, it’ll be fine. (Fingers crossed). The dead thing to its right is Salvia ‘Hot Lips’ which is also due a haircut. The brown Camellia is ‘Prudence’.
Roll on Easter, it’s always nice at Easter.
garden ruminations 
I like the double primula. I am now paying the price of my inexperience my fencing posts set in concrete are now going rotten.😭
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The best of our local pro fencers told me they never use concrete, just long posts, deep holes and a lot of hard work, or a tractor mounted auger if they can get it in.
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I recently liberated a few cuttings of flowering quince from a local churchyard. I hope that they do as well as your rhodies (and that I don’t go to hell for stealing from the church).
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I’m happy to grant you absolution for your Internet confession, but it may not save you.
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Lots there Jim, great to see the cuttings take and I love that camellia 😍 great six once more and good luck with that damn fence post!
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Thanks Thomas.
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I do like that Primrose!
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Your pots of narcissi and your camellia bring some much needed colour to the season. I have a space just like this between our shed and the fence!
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I like your cupboard very much indeed. Every week, I wait for what camellia delights come out of your polytunnel & you never disappoint.
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My magic Camellia tunnel could keep me going a LONG time. As fast as I empty it, it fills up again!
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Are Dawn Ansell primulas from Barnhaven? They are wonderful ! I also liked your blue pot filled with daffodils. A really beautiful mix of colors….
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Gorgeous daffs in a pot! And I love your double primulas. Very impressed with your collecting dahlia seed. I’ve only ever grown ‘Bishop’s Children’ from seed, and not my own seed. Look forward to seeing how they turn out!
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You said you’ll give the “dead” Hot Lips Salvia a haircut…does that mean you expect it to revive? Here is doesn’t survive a freeze at all and would’t recover. Maybe your ground doesn’t freeze.
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No, our ground doesn’t freeze, not in this part of the UK. The Salvia should survive but they get woody and reluctant to shoot from low down.
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I had a similar fence post situation. Bought a couple of metpost thingys that you bang in to the existing hole, they go around the old fence post stump (if it’s still there). Saves mucking about digging up the concrete.
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Yep, could work. I’m still in putting it off mode. Out of sight etc.
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Really enjoyed this. Doesn’t seem as if your cupboard is bare at all. I have recently acquired Dawn Ansell too, but am planning to enjoy her in a pot as worried about my dank clay soil. Very impressed with semi ripe cuttings which is going to be my new try for the year.
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Those cuttings survived us being away for two months, quite a few didn’t.
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