Six on Saturday – 28/4/2018

Categories six on saturday27 Comments on Six on Saturday – 28/4/2018

SOS381Ah the joys of retirement. I’ve enjoyed a full week of gardening this week, a bit like being at work. I had three fairly major things I wanted to get done. First was to lift some Camellias from my allotment and pot them before it was too late to do it. Done, 13 in all. Next was to replace a broken fence post. Done, but with little job satisfaction; three hours of hard graft, digging and breaking concrete, replacing the post and nailing it all back together again and it just looks the same as before it broke.

One
The third project was to extend the fence I’d put up some years back to run the full length of the end of the garden. The previous occupant was an old lady who was nearly blind and never came into the garden. The new lot have cleared the garden and we felt very overlooked; they probably did too. The fence is along the top of the Cornish hedge, our plot was once the corner of a field, and is styled to block the view completely while allowing wind and to some extent, plant growth, free passage. It looks new but will quickly mellow. The last picture shows Pieris coming through from next door on the older section. The posts are a metre in the ground, no concrete was involved.

Two.
Camellia of the week is C. japonica ‘Eximea’. This is a very old variety, around 200 years old, but as you can see, is a real performer. In fact it is much better than a very new and rather similar variety that in one of my moments of early stage dementia I bought and planted nearby. I need to scrap that one and move this one into its place. I’ll do it dreckly, as they say around here. (That means at some indeterminate point in the future, for those of you for whom English is your first language)

Three.
Uvularia perfoliata. Perfoliate bellwort. There are shady parts to my garden and I try to exploit them to the full. All too often the slugs have different ideas, but not with this beauty, which they leave alone. There’s a quiet, understated beauty to very many woodland plants which I love and which this early contributor typifies. Just a few weeks ago nothing was showing; almost overnight it seemed to shoot up and flower, reaching about a foot in height.
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Four.
Epimedium x perralchicum ‘Frohnleiten’ is one of the toughies of a large and intriguing genus. My plant is now spreading quite quickly and I am not allowed to curtail its enthusiasm because its flowers press well and get used for pressed flower cards by the OH. I chopped off all the old leaves about a month back and now have beautifully marbled new ones to accompany the few flowers that have been left!
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Five.
Hakonechloa macra ‘All Gold’ is an astonishingly bright yellow, presumably without much chlorophyll, which might lead you to expect it to somewhat lack vigour. Not a bit of it; I just chopped off a big chunk to give to a gardening friend and to stop it spreading into the plant next to it. My only criticism is that in rain it flops quite badly.
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Six.
Many of the big and well known gardens in Cornwall are emphatically spring gardens, dominated by Rhododendrons, Magnolias and Camellias. You don’t have to plant very many of any of them to have very little else a few years down the line if you don’t really keep on top of them and make a concerted effort to keep space for other things. I don’t enjoy being ruthless but am prepared to be, plus I’ve had some help from disease and storms along the way. There seemed to be a lot happening so I took a few pictures to help contemplation of what I liked and disliked. I need something to block the view of my tunnel, pretty it ain’t. The view back down the way makes shows a space I may be able to use.

Loads more sixes will as ever be linked to The Propagator’s masterly posting; be sure to check them out over the next day or two.

Published by Jim Stephens

Gardener, no-dig allotmenteer, camellia enthusiast. I love colour, it cheers me up. Retired nurseryman.

27 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – 28/4/2018”

  2. Your garden is stunning; thank you for identifying the Epimedium x perralchicum ‘Frohnleiten, which i had to copy and paste from your page (the spelling if that beauty!). I have one that looks similar and I wondered what is was. Good luck with all your plans, I’m sure it will look amazing and I’m loving that fence.

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  3. Just a little bit jealous that you can spend every day in your garden! It looks a wonderful place to be. Fab that you have got on with so much work. Stunning pieris. Uvularia looks like an intriguing plant. In my other life I am a speech and language therapist, and have spent a fair amount of time inspecting children’s uvulas (the dangly bit at the back of the throat), presumably where the name comes from – it does look remarkably similar!

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    1. The great advantage of a camera is that you can control what people see. I’m flattered by and grateful for your comments but honestly, there is much that is wanting, I just don’t take pictures of it.

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      1. So true. Like the part of my garden that is underwater again this week. I took alot of things out last fall and can’t get in that area to replant. Perhaps I should just turn it into a huge water feature.

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  5. Your garden looks a delight. I notice you are in south-east Cornwall, I am in the south-west and only been here for two years and just about getting to understand my tiny plot of land. Very wet, very heavy soil and lots of slugs and snails. Anything that is S&S proof goes into my notebook! I like your epimedium, lovely leaves. I planted one under a tree so don’t see the flowers so much, although the tree is deciduous. I am hoping it will spread (the epimedium, not the tree) 🙂

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    1. Slugs and wind are the main two limitations on gardening in Cornwall I reckon. If you ever get up this way you’re welcome to drop in and have a look round. See what the slugs have turned their snouts up at.

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  6. Love the garden shots – we don’t often see those in SoS posts. The bellwort is fantastic, as is the epimedium. Can we get a photo of OH’s cards?

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    1. I had to use my imagination to make a garden shot into a “thing” for the purposes of SoS. I may just stick one in each time as a header. I will speak to OH about doing a pressed flower card item.

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      1. Or a pressed flower card link, if there’s a shop. Would love to see them. And yes, a garden shot each time so I can steal . . . I mean appreciate your garden designs.

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  9. I tried the “hac mac” because I love those yellow pops of color in the garden, but the rabbits liked it too much. It disappeared. You have a beautiful garden and both you and your uphill neighbors will appreciate the new fence.

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      1. I live in a suburb and have rabbits, squirrels and the occasional deer. I know that because I found deer scat in one of my beds this week. If the deer don’t eat my hostas, the slugs do. Ah, the joys of gardening. We have an expression…good fences make good neighbors.

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  11. Your neighbours are probably dunking their biscuits in their morning tea and wondering what they did to offend you, though the new fence looks good. You have a lot of energy (and determination) to get down a metre. I don’t like concrete but cheat with Metposts. Thanks for identifying my mystery Epimedium from last week – the flowers on mine look just like yours (though I have no leaves at the moment).

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    1. I did have a slightly awkward “please don’t take it personally but I’m putting up a fence” conversation with them a couple of weeks back. The lies we tell. My double handled shovel will go in my “six favourite tools” post when I get to write it.

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