At the beginning of the week the forecast was predicting terrible weather for this weekend but here at least it hasn’t materialised yet. All a bit benign, allowing things to carry on going through their paces and putting off big collapses followed by big clean ups for a while longer. It’ll happen soon enough, in the meantime here are six horticultural geese a-laying.
One.
I think it was HeyJude who said her Amarine was flowering a few weeks ago, leaving me mildly bereft as mine didn’t even have buds. That has changed, I have flowers on what I believe to be Amarine tubergenii ‘Zwanenburg’. Same as Nerines, but bigger.
Two.
I judged it the right time to pick my Holstein apples from my family tree. There are still a few on the tree but this lot I have put, about eight at a time, in freezer bags, loosely tied. They’re back in the same trays and shoved under the greenhouse bench. They will be inspected frequently for developing rot.
Three.
Impatiens omeiana cv. I was once told this was probably ‘Chen Yi Red’ but no such name is listed by the RHS. They have one called ‘Red Leaf’, perhaps it’s that. Who knows? All that comes up when I search online is the last time I included it in a six on saturday. It has red leaves earlier in the year and if I water it enough, it lives long enough to flower.
Four.
Fuchsia magellanica ‘Genii’, like most of our Fuchsias, has had a difficult year. It has finally come good and is all the more welcome for doing so when the need for a bit of brightness is greater. You can always tell ‘Genii’ from that absurdly long style, if it’s much shorter it’s probably F. magellanica ‘Aurea’.
Five.
Anisodontea ‘El Rayo’. This has flowered continuously since I planted it in spring but never enough to really grab my attention. It’s showing no sign of stopping so perhaps it will keep going and outlast the competition. It is reputed to flower all winter. Maybe it would have done more flowering and less growing in poorer soil, or more sun. I must take some cuttings and try it in different places.
Six.
Last year I grew Rhodochiton atrosanguineus from seed sown in May then overwintered in the greenhouse. I tried again at the same time this year with no success, tried again a month or so later and failed again. In late August I collected fresh seed from the plants growing in the garden, from last May’s sowing, and they are germinating slowly, erratically and in October. Now what do I do with them? The garden plants are still flowering, that must be 14 months continuously. I must try lifting and overwintering one or two of them.
A couple of days ago I got an email from Jon asking if I would take over hosting duties for Six on Saturday. I know that feeling when something that started as a pleasure becomes a chore then a burden. I imagine I speak for all of you when I say that I am full of admiration and gratitude for the years that Jon has been keeping the meme going; his boots are big, I hope I can fill them. Thank you Jon, and I wish you all the best with whatever you fill the space with.
The nerdy side of me can tell you it started on 6th May 2017 and that this is week 283. The philosophical side of me firmly believes that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I am not planning to change anything, although I wouldn’t rule out unplanned changes, given the limitations of my skills with WordPress. Onward and upward.
For one week only, you will find all the links over at The Propagator. After that, right here.
garden ruminations 
The Amarine looks fabulous. I’m going to have to try some bulbs and hope they do better than the Nerines for me.
I love the Fuchsia, but I haven’t bought any for years because I worry about importing Fuchsia gall mite into the garden. Perhaps I should just get on and buy myself some anyway.
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I can’t think that a Fuchsia would be harbouring gall mite for long without showing obvious symptoms so if you kept a close watch on any new plants for a few weeks and whipped out any that showed infection (and take it back to the seller!) I’d have thought you’d be safe enough.
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It is still my intention to eventually post on SoS who knows if I will or not! I do enjoy your posts bro. and read them every week, even if I don’t say very much!
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There’s no rule says you can’t get out once you take the plunge. Everyone starts with one post. Not very many finish at that point, though some have not stayed long, sadly.
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I’m having trouble posting a comment here, but trying again: Thank you so much for picking up the hosting of the SOS! It’s so wonderful to have a central place to get to meet and share with gardeners from around the world. I don’t always post weekly, and when I do post, it’s often more than six because I have a lot of irons in the fire, but I really love this group and like to use the format from time to time. I’ve discovered and followed many wonderful gardeners from SOS. Thanks again Jim, for giving The Propagator a break and taking this on! Lovely post from you… I learned something new! I had never heard of the Rhodochiton atrosanguineus.
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It’s not that you’re having a problem, it’s that I have my comments set to not show until I’ve approved them. I will change it now so all comments show up straight away. Rhodochiton is a great plant, pricking off a few seedlings is on my to do list for today.
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Oh OK whew… I thought there was something wrong with my internet or WordPress or something. Sorry to bug you! And thanks again for what you are doing!
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Beautiful plants again, Jim. Thank you for taking over from Jon. He has started quite a big “gathering”. I hope it doesn’t involve too much hassle for you.
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Jon had honed the business of keeping it going with minimal workload and I’ve taken careful note. I should be able to manage without it getting on top of me.
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Thank you for taking over Six on Saturday. That is quite the commitment. It can get to be a minor commitment just for the participants, so must be much more for you.
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Thank you for picking up the SOS hosting! Much appreciated. It’s so wonderful to have a central way to share with so many gardeners around the world.
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Thanks for taking over the running of SoS. It is always such a pleasure to see what people are diong in their gardens all over the world.
Love your Fuchsia – actually, I think it is one of my favourite plants, certainly in ny top 10 anyway,
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I am endlessly fascinated by the limitless diversity of gardens and by what they reveal about the gardener, or at least what I think they reveal. Totally with you on Fuchsias.
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How very kind of you to take over! There are many who will appreciate your being willing to take on this chore.
Do you milk those apples? The only Holsteins I know are cows.
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According to Wikipedia, Holstein bulls are notoriously vicious. It seems that we call them Friesians but they come from Friesland and Schleswig-Holstein….. I didn’t need to know this, I should have clicked “like” and left it at that.
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I laughed that you didn’t need to know about those bulls. I would have accepted your “like” at face value. You just proved how smart you are, to look something up instead of shrugging your shoulders. If I had been smart, I would have checked out your Holstein apples.
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The apple scions came from a tree brought back from Schleswig Holstein by an ex work colleague of mine who came to England from that part of Germany. It seems particularly well suited to Cornwall, which is not true of many popular English varieties. A website here has reviews from around the world, sounds like its performance in the US is mixed. It’s so amazing to have all this information at one’s fingertips. It has always saddened me that my dad didn’t live to become hooked to an ipad; he had that same thirst for knowledge and information and would have absolutely loved it. https://www.orangepippin.com/varieties/apples/holstein
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It is wonderful that you take advantage of so much that the Internet has to offer. Like you said, it’s too bad your dad didn’t have the same opportunity. My mother, on the other hand, told me to not ever think of bringing a computer near her. She had been a legal secretary and was content to type a letter once a week to my brother and me. I wonder if she would have been lured by the ease of tablets and cell phones. Maybe not.
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The risk of not embracing new technology is that everyone else does and you get shut out of many things. I don’t know how people manage without internet access, so much is online only these days. I was very late to the mobile phone world and even now I rarely use it.
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Yes, that is what I thought. I remember that name for a few of the cows who used to live on dairies near here. (Goodness! It is impossible to imagine that there were formerly dairies where San Jose is now.)
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Here, here regarding all that Jon has done with the Six on Saturday meme and thanks for taking on the hosting of it. I’m glad your Fuchsia magellanica ‘Genii’ has come good – it looks wonderful.
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I’m having a running battle with Fuchsia gall mite which is depressing so when I get a few varieties performing well it makes it seem worth keeping up the effort.
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Well done for picking up the baton, it would be a shame to see the end of this group of gardeners, even though I tend to bow out for a couple of months over winter. My garden is in full shade then and not very inspiring. I was interested to read about the long style of the fuchsia and so paid particular attention when viewing mine this evening, and yes it is long! I had not noticed before. My Amarines are still flowering I am pleased to say though I only have three spikes. Very welcome, if a somewhat shocking pink, to brighten up the garden at this time of year. Do you leave yours outside over winter?
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I have left the one well established pot of Amarines out but I have a couple of more recent pots that have come in for winter, one is still in the tunnel, with a single flower stem, yet to open.
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A beautiful and informative post as always Jim. Delighted you will be taking over as host – thanks for keeping SOS going, it really is fabulous to connect with other gardeners and see what everyone is up to. I dipped my toe into gardening blogs in search of inspiration and new ideas and found it in spades (pun intended), I never expected to get so much pleasure from the social interactions too! 😊
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Plenty of quality pictures to admire, and I can imagine what a lovely smell is coming off those apples. Jon has done sterling work, and of course he would not have given up if he had not a worthy person to pass the baton over to .I am sure you are going to be a great host
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I will do my best.
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Well done for taking up the baton Jim, your plant knowledge stands you in a great leadership position. Would you consider joining twitter to help with the social media side of this meme? I see lots of folks posting a collage of photos using the SoS meme on twitter even though they don’t write a blog post. It is very popular there, it would be good to maintain a link to the blog post origins through your leading posts.
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It was something mentioned between Jon and me and he said it had taken on a life of its own and he didn’t get much involved with gardening on twitter any more. I have a twitter account and have posted on it in the past and I do take your point about maintaining a link between the twitter SoS community and the blogging SoS community. I will have a look at the Twitter stuff over the next couple of weeks and maybe take the plunge.
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Quite a few of us are on twitter if you need advice… Fred, Graeme (One man and his garden trowel), Chris….etc You don’t have to go mad on there, but there is a good gardening crowd that I’ve discovered.
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Technically, I am on Twitter already but I’ve lain dormant for a few years. @JamesLStephens with the most recent post being 12/12/2020. There’s only so many hours in the day, but I will revisit it.
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So happy the meme will continue, Jim! But I’m sad to report I can’t see any of your photos this weekend on either my phone or my tablet – is it just me? I likely won’t be booting up my ancient laptop today but will try tomorrow… I can see last week’s, and previous posts, pics and all…just today’s seem affected.
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No one else has reported a problem and I can see them myself ok, so it seems to be an issue at your end, perhaps Vladimir has blown up the undersea cable.
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LOL! The photos have finally appeared, and a good thing too, because I wanted to see those Nerines!
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Maybe you should throw some flower seeds into the dead car. It could be quite an installation! And I might have met the downhill run with gardening. 71 tomorrow and the body tells me so after a day of bending!!!!
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It’s a race between my knees and my back for which gives out first. I haven’t done a day of bending for years, an hour and I’m in serious trouble. I could put the car in a six, it’s as rooted in situ as any plant, and almost as green.
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I have seen some wonderfully planted dead cars, usually 1950s Cadillacs! Thank you for taking the hosting duties for SOS, I enjoy following the weekly posts. Love your fuchsia this week.
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Not too many 1950’s Cadillacs around here. The car concerned is a 1990’s Fiat Panda, pretty nasty even when new. Sadly its roof and windows are still intact so planting opportunities are lacking.
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I had to look up the Panda, I don’t think that is imported here, it looks a great deal like a Honda my father had in the 80s. It would not look good planted! I wish I had some photos of the Cadillac plantings from a nursery I used to frequent, the trunk and hood were planted with a lot of cannas and annuals in the summer.
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Thank you Jim, for taking this on for we lesser gardeners. As I said to Jon, I’ve learned such a lot over the years and hope through continuing SoS to learn more. Cheers.
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There are no lesser gardeners, only gardeners at different points on their learning trajectory. (Which goes up, then starts to come down again around the age of seventy!) Then again there is my neighbour with the dead car in her front garden still, after twenty years. Not a gardener at all is what she is.
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Glad to see you taking up the torch from Jon. I’m sure you’ll be fine. Nevertheless, the future will tell us if small changes are necessary to present six things of our gardens.
This week I really liked the anisodontea which seems to be an easy plant to grow. Did you sow or plant it? Do you plan to leave it in the garden for the winter to try( after taking cuttings of course)?
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I planted the Anisodontea, having bought it online. I must get on with cuttings, it’s getting late. I was going to leave it out, it’s two metres tall!
I would be interested to hear your thoughts on evolving the SoS theme, and anybody else’s too, but it works pretty well as it is so I’m in no rush to change anything.
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You’re the new boss now 😂. I will send some ideas that I wanted to share with Jon.
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Thanks for stepping in, Jim!
Your apples look fabulous. I only collect mine after they’ve fallen, which as you can imagine, means they are bruised. I will have to break this cycle next year and try to pick them to store them.
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I have a big pile of windfalls which I’m trying to get through before starting on the stored apples. The danger is you never get to eat a perfect apple, they’re either damaged windfalls or soft from storage. There are worse dilemmas to have.
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I am wondering whether I will automatically still receive Six on Saturday or do I need to re -register or something … thank you, Angela
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Good point Angela. You will be getting notification emails about Jon’s Six on Saturday posts because you follow his blog and said yes to getting email notifications. You will need to do the same in respect of my blog now.
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