Six on Saturday – 10/12/2022

Categories six on saturday51 Comments on Six on Saturday – 10/12/2022

Brrr! I’m not keen on this. Sue’s the sensible one, on her way to Australia. I’ve had a full-on Camellia week; Leonardslee and Nymans gardens on Monday, looking at camellias. Tuesday I was taking part in a round table review of AGM’s (Award of Garden Merit) for autumn flowering camellias at Wisley. Wednesday evening I spoke to the Cornwall Hardy Plant Society about camellias. Thursday I was at Mt Edgcumbe showing people round the camellia collection. It’s nice to be looking at something else for a Saturday six and I’ve resisted what small temptation there was to include any camellias. I’ve also decided that I’m not going to show piles of blackened mush, the aftermath of some of the coldest nights we’ve had here in years. Finding six things was a challenge, but now that I’m in the driving seat, not one I had the option of ducking.
This may not be the week to inspire you to join in, but if you are inclined to, the brief is to post six things from your garden and put a link to your post in the comments below. Alternatively join in on Twitter or Instagram. There’s a participants guide here. Onward and upward.

One.
Correa ‘Federation Bell’. This is just the sort of plant that I get nervous about when it’s really cold. Will it survive or won’t it? It has very good drainage, in poor soil and full sun. That should have toughened it up a bit. If it lives it should flower all winter. The Plectranthus to its right has had it, I’m going to have a mountain of shredding to do next week.

Two.
Fuchsia microphylla or bacillaris, I can’t tell the difference. A weird colour in early morning sun but came through last night without a scratch; I’m less confident about tonight which is forecast to be a couple of degrees colder. More often than not it comes through the winter with leaves and flowers intact; it could be a “not” year.

Three.
Violas. These have gone deeper into the winter in passable shape than ever before. The leaf spot that they normally succumb to is starting to take hold, I don’t know whether cold will favour the plant or the disease.

Four.
Nerine ‘Pink Triumph’. I don’t really have anything to say about this other than it is flowering in my greenhouse now, growing in a pot.

Five.
Coronilla valentina ‘Lauren Stevenson’. If you’re thinking I put this in a recent six, you’re right; though not as recent as I thought, 29th October. It’s just about the only thing flowering freely in the garden that is totally unbothered by the cold. The scent has been seriously damped down though.

Six.
It’s perhaps because we’ve only had our first frosts in the last two nights that the oak tree still has a lot of leaves. I would rather like them to all drop now, December seems very late for leaf fall. I have a suspicion that’s the sort of thing I say every year though.

That wraps up yet another six. It looks like the cold continues for most of next week so six next weekend won’t be any easier. The forecast for tonight is for -4°C, which is colder than I can remember for a few years. Even by UK standards it isn’t very cold, but not having had much frost in recent years I have been pushing my luck on what I grow and risk leaving in the ground. My expectation is that I will have things survive that were expected to die and vice versa. I will learn a little from the experience but I doubt I will learn not to repeat the risk taking next year. Stay warm.

Published by Jim Stephens

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

51 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – 10/12/2022”

  1. Hi Jim. I guess it depends on how far north of Brisbane Sue goes for warmth and dry.
    On the eastern seaboard, we have had the worst year with rain and serious flooding.
    In NSW, Victoria and South Australia, much of our productive farmland is flooded which actually will affect the quality and quantity of food in the stores.
    The farmers of course, are in dire straits.
    Here in eastern Tasmania, we have been perpetually slopping round in mud all year, our veggie garden is so slow and lamb and mutton prices have dropped because the market is being flooded with stock that farmers are unable to feed. On our farm, we’re currently lamb-shearing and will have to shed each day’s shorn lambs for a night in the barn as its cold, windy and wet. This is an absolute first.
    We’ve had about 32 inches on the farm thus far and prior to climate change, we would have between 12-20 inches PA. That extra 12 inches is stopping any harvesters from getting onto paddocks. Tough times.
    Meantime, my garden looks as English as an English garden can!

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    1. 32 inches is very close to our normal and it’s when it deviates wildly from it that we feel the pain. Our crops and growing methods are geared for what we are used to and while people are very adaptable, it’s all so erratic now you don’t know what it is you’re trying to adapt to. Not that farming underwater ever seem likely to catch on.

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  2. Fingers crossed your plants make it through the cold spell. I was away until yesterday evening so I’ve not got a post for you this week.
    PS We had -15 the first year we moved here. There wasn’t much in the garden anyway, and even less after those temperatures. It made me wary of planting anything less than fully hardy, although I probably have planted a few more tender things over the years unintentionally.

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  3. I am impressed with your selections for such a cold week. I haven’t lift the fleece in our greenhouse for 4 days now. I hope that your correa comes through. I always look longingly at it on other people’s blogs.
    Since the ice hasn’t melted in parts of our garden, I am indeed posting frozen flowers. I suspect I’ll be doing a lot of clearing up at the end of next week too.
    https://wp.me/pM8Y1-8NN

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  4. I haven’t grown any pansies for a couple of years as they kept going horribly black and dying and I haven’t dared try since. I haven’t even looked at my Fuchsia microphylla which I think is ‘Pixie’ to see if it is OK. Basically I dash out in the morning to hang up the bird feeder and dash out in the evening to bring it back in again, empty! Too cold to hang around outside, though I did spot my yellow osteospermums optimistically flowering again…

    Sue has the right idea, I wish I was flying over to Australia, my son lives in Brisbane and it is a lovely 30+ degrees there – possibly too hot and humid for me, but I could sit out in their garden and drink cold NZ wine.

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    1. Her plane just landed at Brisbane. One thing is certain, she won’t be complaining about the temperature. This problem with pansies seems more common than I thought. I thought it was just me and wondered what I was doing wrong.

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  11. How anyone can write about gardening in winter is amazing to me! You are fantastic — truthful and witty I saw a headline that England was expecting extreme cold and wondered how it would affect you. Now I know. You and your garden are winners. Good luck for the coming week.

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    1. We don’t get really cold winters where I am, which temps us into growing a lot of tender plants, with the attendant risks. The unpredictability and variability are a constant challenge, which is not altogether a bad thing.

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    1. There’s no obvious nearby source of infection for my violas, so they may have been infected when I got them. Then again, there are self sown viola tricolor all over the garden which may harbour disease while not being very susceptible themselves. I know I’d get short shrift if I took them back to the shop!

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  25. Glad to hear you are keeping busy! We westies are not used to these frosts, so many in a row! It is every plant for themselves at the moment. I expect it will be a while before we know who made it and who didn’t. Love the coronilla, I wonder if I could squeeze one in. I’m not sure which my diddy fuchsia is either, there seem to be quite a few that look similar. Hope Sue brings some warmth back with her, but no rain. Here are mine https://offtheedgegardening.com/2022/12/09/six-on-saturday-earth-stood-hard-as-iron/

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    1. I suspect Correa would be happier without a lump of very moisture retentive potting compost around its base, but they’re always pot grown. The weather is nuts. Two minutes ago it was raining heavily, now it’s snowing. Overnight was clear and very cold.

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  27. Six on Saturday: Before Winter


    Mine are rather mundane this week. It is a long story. I did not get out much today, and did not get pictures earlier. Well, in the end, there were not six good pictures to select from. I sort of slapped some together anyway.
    Our violas just went into the landscapes this week. We do not use many bedding plants. Changing them is sort of an unpleasant job though, since it involves removal of bedding plants from the previous season before they are completely finished. These new violas should last until warm weather in spring. Gee, now that I think of it, we got a few pansies also.

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    1. The Correa looks OK this morning but it’s not a soft think like a Salvia that dies instantly; if it goes it will be slow and painful. Coronilla is fine too, and amazingly my Rhodochiton is looking unbothered at the moment. It’s good to find a few things that have fared better than expected.

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