Six on Saturday – 12/11/2022

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I really thought I was going to struggle to find six things this week but the wind dropped a couple of days back, the rain is having a few days off and the temperatures are absurd for the time of year, so a lot of plants are just keeping on going. My Dahlias have been beaten by wind and rain but Fuchsias and Salvias seem much more resilient. I suppose winter will start at some point and we’d better make the best of what we have for now, not that much actual gardening has been done this week; a bit of cutting down and shredding, some tulips planted, vegetable seed order completed.

Most of you know the form; for those who don’t but fancy joining in, post pictures of six things happening now in your garden and put a link into the comments at the end of this blog. Such “rules” as exist can be found in this guide for participants. To business:

One.
One of this year’s runaway successes has been Rhodochiton atrosanguineus, a perennial climber usually grown as an annual. I sowed seed at the end of May last year, grew and overwintered several young plants in the greenhouse until spring this year when I planted them out; a metre tall and already flowering. They’re still flowering and given my failure to get seeds to germinate this year, I have cut down and potted up a couple of plants to see if they will come through this winter (I wouldn’t expect them to survive in the garden) so I can plant them out again next year.

Two.
Salvia corrugata is something I thought I had put in a six recently, but it’s actually nearly a year ago. I said then that we needed to take cuttings earlier and plant out more advanced plants that would flower earlier, but it may well be shorter days that trigger flowering, in which case that wouldn’t help. I’d be happy to stay frost free for another month though, to enjoy these sumptuous blue flowers for longer.

Three.
Fuchsia boliviana. I know nothing about the climate of Bolivia other than it cannot be the same as ours, where this is a somewhat tricky plant to manage. We have it growing in the ground, where it gets killed to the ground by the first frost. We are yet to have a winter where that hasn’t happened, so each spring it has to start again from the roots, which have always survived. It grows strongly to a height of at least a metre but more often than not is killed again before it produces any flowers. One year we overwintered a few plants in the tunnel and they flowered all through the following summer, something we should clearly do routinely. This year it has lots of buds, some of which are opening, if slowly. It’s a race against time.

Four.
Molinia caerulea subsp. arundinacea ‘Transparent’ is a tall growing grass that lives up to its name almost too well when it is still green; very hard to photograph because it doesn’t show against its background. Then in autumn, this happens, assuming it hasn’t collapsed in a heap earlier. I tied it up with canes and a loop of string this year, not pretty but necessary.

Five.
I grew Dahlia campanulata from seed a few years back. I planted one in the garden and it grew two metres tall, eventually produced a few buds which never opened, then snapped off at soil level. I moved the tuber to join its mates on my allotment. There, three or four plants have grown a metre high, at which point they get above the windbreak and it’s a matter of time before they get snapped off. This year I have lots of buds, mostly near the ground on horizontal stems, one of which has opened!!! It’s the sort of encouragement I need to put up some sort of adequate support for them next year. Was it worth the wait? (Checks sowing date, 15/3/2021, only last year! Seems much longer. Must have put one in the garden which snapped last year, planted the others on the allotment)

Six.
Begonia carolineifolia is another first timer in a Saturday six though it did get a mention in one of my Begonia roundups. It is a very handsome foliage plant and certainly seems robust enough to try outside in summer, though it has spent this season, its first, in our north facing conservatory. It has grown prodigiously but shows no sign of flowering, which reportedly occurs in late winter/early spring. I’d better bring it into the house for winter. I was taking stacked images of Camellia flowers yesterday and thought that while I had everything set up I’d take its picture too. The stems are oval in section, more than two inches wide on the longer axis.

  • Begonia carolineifolia in November
  • Begonia carolineifolia in November
  • Begonia carolineifolia in early August

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Published by Jim Stephens

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

62 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – 12/11/2022”

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    1. The height of the Molinia is no problem but mine arches over to nearly touch the ground, in a circle about 10 feet in diameter. I haven’t cracked supporting it even acceptably, let alone attractively.

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    1. I’m not sure that trying harder will help with germinating Rhodochiton, sometimes it germinates and sometimes it doesn’t for me, with bought seed being pretty hopeless. Fresh is best, but that means sowing just ahead of winter and coaxing seedlings through the winter. I collected and sowed seed from mine at the end of August and they germinated well so I have a pot full of tiny seedlings which I’m not sure whether to prick off or leave until spring.

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      1. That’s really useful info, Jim. I’ve been in the position of only ever being able to buy seed. So perhaps I should buy a plant next year and save my seed, from what you say. Thanks.

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      2. I’d happily send you some of my saved seed but it’s very late to sow it now and by spring it will be no fresher than bought seed without the presumed better storage facilities they have. If I get seed a bit earlier next year I could perhaps send you some mid to late summer.

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    1. I am very happy that people like yourself feel able to post occasionally yet still be members of the gang, as it were. In nursery days we had customers who came to Cornwall on holiday once a year and always came to the nursery and regarded themselves as regular customers. We regarded them as regulars too, especially when they piled two or three trolley loads of plants into an already full car, ready to set off home.

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  10. Pingback: six on saturday: 11.12.22 | sober bunny

    1. We shall await your return in spring; in the meantime if you get a run of six sunsets, or tin mines, or cows or whatever, you know the rules are only there to be broken. And obviously you don’t want six cows in your garden either.

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  15. We are in that transition between the warm days of fall and the cool rainy days of winter. A light frost is forecast for the next two nights and all the blooms may be ruined. The Six on Saturday exercise led me to being more broad thinking. The fall leaves are especially colorful this year so my focus this week is on them.
    https://mensgardenvestavia.wordpress.com/2022/11/11/fall-colors-11-nov-2022/
    Thanks you Jim for the six special photos you posted. You keep us challenged.
    Happy gardening!!

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  20. I have fuchsias and salvias in my garden too, but the ones you show us are always something more interesting. I did wonder why some of these take so long to get going, particularly as they couldn’t be objecting to the cold over cast days this year, so I was interested in your comment about them possibly needing the shorter days to trigger flowering. I shall just be more patient with them in future.
    Nice to see some new faces and some old ones among all the stalwarts this week. I’ll be back later to have a proper read through.
    https://www.hortusbaileyana.co.uk/2022/11/planting-and-sowing.html

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  23. Pingback: Allotment experiments: six on Saturday: 12 Nov 2022 – The Nostalgic Gardener

  27. Hi Jim, I’ve been awol for a year but am happy to be back and visiting your posts, this time with you as our host for Six On Saturday. Thanks for taking it on. I too have a fuchsia boliviana. I’ve been tempted to leave it out all winter but if it can’t take your Cornish winters it certainly won’t like our Chiltern ones. I planted mine in the ground for the summer where it was very happy with its roots in the soil. It’s now been dug up and moved to the greenhouse. It’s a cumbersome arrangement but I like to mollycoddle my tenders.

    Here’s my blog in which I describe a disaster in the veg patch and a loss of my garden companion but also add in a couple of pretties from the greenhouse.

    https://www.teabreakgardener.co.uk/the-prodigal-gardener/

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  29. I think it was worth the wait with the Dahlia! After three years of attempting to grow South African Foxgloves from seed (Ceratotheca triloba) I didn’t bother this time as they never got to the flowering stage before succumbing to the winter – even in the greenhouse. Maybe after a year off I’ll try again in the spring. Rhodochiton atrosanguineus is a stunner. https://onemanandhisgardentrowel.wordpress.com/2022/11/12/six-on-saturday-12-november-2022/

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  31. Six on Saturday: Memories II


    Are salvias grown primarily for their bloom, or are some grown more for aromatic foliage? Our native black sage is very aromatic, although some might say objectionably so. I know that I can not be the only one who likes it, since it is available from nurseries. The bloom is not much to look at though. I grow it just because I like how it smells when the weather gets warm. Pineapple sage is popular here, supposedly because of its aromatic foliage. I am not impressed, but I do grow a few here, just because everyone else likes it.

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    1. I think for most people the aromatic foliage is a bonus on top of the flowers. You probably get hot enough that they scent the air, which doesn’t happen much here, you have to touch the foliage to get the smell. I don’t know that I really like the smell of any of them, pineapple sage may be one of the better ones, S. confertiflora is one of the worst.

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      1. We got pineapple sage only recently, and only because a branch of it got in my way where I parked at a bank in town. I am pleased that it is here, but I do not understand why it is as popular as it is. Mexican blue sage is the best so much more colorful, and can perform without much watering. Some of ours gets no watering.

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