Six on Saturday – 17/12/2022

Categories six on saturday, 49 Comments on Six on Saturday – 17/12/2022

It looks like it’s going to warm up through the day and be frost free tonight, so perhaps the best thing is to forget the past week and look only forward. It’s been very cold, the longest sustained cold spell for years, and will have done some damage. How much damage will not become become clear until next spring, a long way off.

Finding six things in the garden that I even remotely feel inclined to point the camera at has really been a challenge. At least there have been a couple of sunny days, which has helped a little, but it’s only really the grasses that have looked good in it. Let’s kick off with one of them.

One.
Stipa nepalensis. On a really still day I may try a stacked image of this, get all the flower heads in focus against a blurred background. It looks lovely in the sun and invites viewing from every angle, giving a subtly different effect from each.

Two.
Agave parryi ‘Cream Spike’ is the variegated Agave with black spikes in the middle of the picture. An arbitrary choice of subject but one of Sue’s collection that I am pretty unconcerned about in the cold. The real worry is the Aeoniums, the least hardy and most expensive of the stuff in her glasshouse. None have turned to mush though they look a bit limp. Hopefully they’re just in need of a drink, which they can have when it warms up a bit. Most of the rest go October to March without water, the Aeoniums need a little.


Three.
Six garden ornaments is an option closed to me as we only have two. It’s slightly surprising that Sue has never given this turtle a name. Under the patina of moss is a greenish marble type stone. It sits partly hidden beside the path, perfectly positioned to stub your toe on. I do so, regularly.


Four.
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned a Begonia I had bought at Tregrehan Plant Fair in 2020. It was one of only two plants purchased on that occasion, which for me counts as some kind of record. The other one was Pyrrosia sheareri, a fern. It looks quite similar to Asplenium scolopendrium, our native hart’s tongue fern, but the fronds are darker, thicker and have a pale felted underside. Nothing like our native hart’s tongue fern in fact. It comes from China, Taiwan and North Vietnam. It looks to have survived the cold unscathed, though I probably shouldn’t count my chickens, far too soon to judge. The ferns are mostly looking pretty passable around the garden.


Five.
The only place here where it’s warm enough for anything to actually grow is my propagator, set at around 17Ā°C and with supplementary lights. It’s full of all the cuttings of Salvias and so on that we took very late and need to survive to replace all the parent plants that were left in the ground. I also put in a couple of begonia leaves from a cutting I’d taken. I put them in a six on 6th November when new plantlets were just starting to form. Now look at it. I don’t quite know what to do with it, I think it already has a massive root system in the gravel. Begonia ‘Boomer’, terrible name for what is shaping up to be a great plant.


Six.
Skimmia japonica ‘Rubella’. The really common male form of Skimmia, so no berries but always an utterly reliable display of scented flowers in spring, opening from bright red buds that have been providing a bit of colour since the autumn. Such a good value plant and easy to take for granted. We had a dusting of snow one night this week, mostly now gone.


Another week over and one I’m heartily glad to see the back of. Another week and the cold will be forgotten; I’ll be thinking I don’t mind the cold so long as it’s dry. I need to clear away all the dead stuff, it’ll only keep reminding me how cold it’s been. Next week there’s something on, so if you don’t turn up, that’s just fine. I’ll stick something up so you have somewhere to post your links.

On the other hand, if a quiet week is your idea of a good time to join in, just post six items and put a comment with a link to your post into my comments section. There’s a participants guide right here.

Published by Jim Stephens

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

49 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – 17/12/2022”

  4. Pingback: Six on Saturday: Keeping Up Appearances | Rambling in the Garden

  7. I’m not huge on garden ornaments, but I do like your (Sue’s) turtle. The colour reminds me of NZ jade / greenstone. My Aeoniums are in the conservatory (unheated) and looking a bit limp, but I hesitate to water them. Maybe when the temperature rises a bit I’ll give them a drop.

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  8. It’s good to see your S. nepalensis as I planted one in the spring having seen it at Knoll Garden and it’s only got one flower head. I look forward to its future beauty. You’ve also given me hope for my Aeoniums – they have bowed their heads and I thought they’d got too cold and were probably lost.

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  9. Your cat looks so content in the dry grass. My elder cat is in that phase where she complains incessantly about going outside and then really complains when you show her the reality of winter. She is downright grumpy these days. However, the recent snow has allowed for me to take some lovely pictures, some taken on the fly as my trainee and I drove around campus. My theme today is snow, and I have been thinking about how eskimos have so many words for snow – there really are many kinds and what we had this time around was heavy wet “heart attack” snow, which was followed by dry powdery snow, the kind that really sparkles should the sun come out. So this is how things should look if you already must live in below freezing temps. Snow covered peaceful loveliness! Enjoy!
    https://wisconsingarden.wordpress.com/2022/12/17/december-17-2022-six-on-saturday/

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    1. I must ask the only person I know who speaks a bit of Cornish, how many words there are for rain in the language. There should be several. Our water company are going to give us a Ā£30 refund if our local reservoir is 30% full by new year; even cold driving rain has an upside.

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  10. It’s so funny to hear you say ‘I don’t mind the cold as long as it’s dry’ – over here we say, in the middle of our hot humid summers, ‘I don’t mind the heat as long as it’s dry…’. Many people (gardeners and sporty types) like the snow for playing in and to insulate the ground and plants against the frigid January and February temperatures we’ll soon experience. Beautiful grasses!!!

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    1. So true! I even get nervous for my water pipes where they connect me to the main if it gets very cold and there is not snow cover. I would like an accumulation of 2-4 feet (not all at once, of course). Then I feel everything is well insulated.

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  13. Pingback: Six on Saturday: 17 December 2022 – My Tiny Welsh Garden

    1. By the end of Feb my Hakonechloas have largely collapsed, helped in no small measure by the cats. They love charging through them, which is probably better than hiding in them in hope of a bird coming too close. The Skimmia starts to open in March.

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    1. The Stipa has come through probably six or so winters without any problem, so yes in normal winters. I think it will be all right, the growing points are well protected by the base of the plant.

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  17. I’m afraid for your aeoniums that they’ll suffer from the cold… I brought the biggest of mine next to a heater in the greenhouse which keeps the temperature frost-free and the little ones in the house for a few nights, but this morning -6Ā° outsideā€¦ the thaw will only arrive in France on Sunday evening or Monday. I hope your wife has taken cuttings for the most important plants. https://fredgardenerblog2.wordpress.com/2022/12/17/six-on-saturday-17-12-22/

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    1. I was talking to my sister in Turriff yesterday afternoon and she had a foot of snow and it was -7Ā°C. I can here my mother chiding me with “there’s always someone worse off than you”, or was it my granny? Then I spoke to Sue in Oz and it’s 27Ā° and sunny and fresh. I don’t know whether to count my blessings or curse my ill fortune.

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    1. At least you don’t see Stipa nepalensis every time you look out the window and have that hideous image explode in your head. Thanks. Aeoniums are only hardy to perhaps -1Ā°C with us; they would perhaps be hardier if they had a hotter, dryer summer regime, but I don’t think they toughen up to the degree that cacti and Echeverias do. We keep them pretty dry over winter to make them as hardy as possible rather than because damp itself causes them to rot. We’ve bought a couple of Semponiums, hybrids between Aeonium and Sempervivum, that look exactly like Aeoniums, and when we have back-ups, will try overwintering them outside.

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      1. Oh, . . . well, just think of how much fun it will be to cut them off when they finish, and compost them, . . . or maybe bury them in a shallow grave, . . . or maybe incinerate them, . . . perhaps with an accelerant. You know though, they also look like fur balls coughed up by cute orange kittens who did not vote for any president here because they are Canadian and too young to vote.

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    1. That’s the sort of comment I want; enigmatic, even weird, demanding that the post be checked out. Heavy as the responsibility is, I’m banking on being able to shred any casualties before Sue returns and her not to notice what’s missing.

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    1. It’s not that I haven’t worked out the solution to toe stubbing (move it back six inches from the path),I just haven’t got around to doing it. I just gave the Aeoniums a splash of water, they were looking limp but alive, phew!

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