When I was writing this yesterday afternoon it was 8°C and raining, as it had been all day. It was also getting brighter, like it was going to brighten up just in time to go dark. Thanks a lot. I didn’t fancy going out in the rain with my camera and today I’m off gallivanting so all my six are from the conservatory or the porch.
One.
Camellia ‘Ariel’s Song’. Another slightly tender variety that I will have to risk outside at some point because it’s getting too big to stay inside. It’s lightly but pleasantly scented and has long narrow leaves with a strong reddish colouring when young.
Two.
Onions. I grew onions from both sets and seed last year. I read somewhere that seed raised onions kept better and that is proving true, although the ones from sets were lifted a month or six weeks earlier so have been hanging about that much longer. Several of the bulbs from sets have been rotten whereas so far none of the seed raised bulbs has. The sets were of ‘Rumba’, the seeds were ‘Armstrong’, first sowing 3rd February, main sowing 4th March and caught up with earlier lot.
Three.
Succulence or, if you prefer, succulents. Duddleya brittonii. Duddleya has a bit of a reputation for awkwardness but they seem to do well enough for us. They stay in all year round as rain washes off the white powdery covering from the leaves, leaving them looking rather ordinary and green.
Four.
Echeveria elegans borders on being hardy. I think it might survive a winter outdoors here if we didn’t get any sharp frosts and they had been grown hard in the summer with perfect drainage, full sun and poor soil. It’s the sort of thing that survives on St Michaels Mount, crowing in vertical rock crevices facing south. It’s a bit faster growing than some, so you can get a decent sized container well filled in a couple of seasons. This little trough is around 17 ins long.
Five.
There may well be a label buried under this mound. I have no idea what it is but it’s quite hard and spiny so I’m not going rummaging. It’s been in this pot for a good few years.
Six.
Echeveria agavoides. There seems to be a lack of consensus over a common name, with the first page of Google entries including molded wax, wax agarve (sic), molded wax agave and molded wax succulent. It’s not an agave, it’s an echeveria, quite different. There’s lots of varieties of this species, all good. Like Echeveria elegans, comes quite close to being hardy in Cornwall.
So the last four are growing in our front porch and go outdoors in front of the house in summer, except the Dudleya. Here they all are together.
Gotta go. I’m being hassled for action. Other sixes accessible from links on the Prop’s comments section. Toodle pip.
garden ruminations 
Interesting comment about the onions – which look wonderful. I emptied the last of mine out this week – gone soft. They were from sets. I realise I have somehow already fallen behind this year, no potatoes chitting and no onions in the ground. I will have to get organised pdq!
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I love your Duddleya. Very nice. Will have to look out for one. What a beautiful porch display.
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Love your succulent collection. They are very tempting plants to buy and living close to Tremenheere with the succulent nursery is sheer torture! The Duddleya is so pretty. I think my garden is far too wet to leave my Echeveria outdoors through winter, though I get little in the way of frost. I might experiment this year by planting some in the stone wall (sunny side) and see how they fare. Not much in the way of soil in the cracks.
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Tremenheere garden has a few very choice succulents permanently planted in the garden. But do they have any of them sale?
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https://surrealsucculents.co.uk/
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That is interesting about seed grown onions, especially since I have never grown them from seed before. (I suppose I should not admit to that. Oh well.)
That Duddleya brittonii looks very much like a species that is native to San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties It is from Baja California though, so I have never seen it in the wild.
What is ‘toodle pip’?
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Oh, goodbye.
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Please don’t think anyone here actually says “toodle pip”, that was a hundred years and a couple of defunct social classes ago.
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Okay, if you say so. I get it. After all, I am Californian.
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Oh that picture in No5 is brilliant and I am in Awe of your Elegans border!
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The key ingredient is time.
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Name it, you need to knight it! Looks great. I am hopeful my seed onions will be better than last year. Sowed but not yet germinated.
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Love love that spiky one! if you find put the name please let us know!
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I was asking for trouble putting that on with no name; everyone wants to know what it is, including me.
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Your succulents are looking great, especially the “whatever-it’s-called” with the spiky leaves! I came across three houseplant labels when I was tidying up my windowsill this week…. only trouble is I don’t even know if I have the plant they go with any more (oops!)
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I seem to have hundreds of labels lying about, mostly hand written things I intend to clean and reuse, but never get around to.
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You have a wonderful collection of succulents! Onions, I’ve never thought about growing them from seed… ponderous
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The thing you have to know about onions is that they switch from growing to bulbing in mid summer, so you have to get as much growth as possible before then. Sow early and keep growing well.
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Succulents as well! Nice display on the shelves. I have only tried growing onions once, fairly successfully but I found when chopping home-grown ones that my eyes were streaming and stinging far more than with shop bought ones. I should follow my #1 son-in-law’s example and don swimming goggles!!
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Chopping onions is one of the things I have been found useful for. I have a method, it works for me.
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Don’t keep me in suspense! What’s your secret?
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Cut in half, then slice radially down to but not into base plate, ie cut into segments but still joined at the base. Then slice from the top down. On the basis that what makes you cry is in the base plate.
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Thank you, Jim. I will try that.
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You have a good selection of succulents there. Number 5 looks very intricate up close.
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Way too much love for number five. I’m going to have to put a name to it.
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You are indeed! It looks very familiar to me. Maybe I have seen this on St Michael’s Mount. I shall have a look through my photos and see if I spot one!!
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That would be excellent.
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Too bad that you don’t have the name of the plant #5 :It’s very nice!
What beautiful succulents you have, I’m envious of all that!
About the onions, I grow everything from sets and it’s true that I lost a bit because of rot. ‘Rumba’ was the one that was grown in 2017. This year I’m going to grow the classics ‘Stuttgarter’ : sets bought and ready to plant this afternoon.
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I grew onions from seed a couple of years earlier, a Spanish var that didn’t keep at all. Armstrong were said to be good keepers and that seems to be true. They are a little smaller than the ones from sets but medium sized onions are more convenient to use.
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What a wonderful display of succulents and I like your nameless mound. I visited the garden at St Michael’s Mount a couple of years ago and was very inspired by it. I only have one Echeveria which I bought from there, Duchess of Nuremburg. She is outside on her patio, maybe I need to bring her in with more cold weather coming.
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I’m going to have to identify the mound, it’s annoying me. I wouldn’t risk leaving the Duchess out, there’s a lot of winter left.
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