Six on Saturday – 24/12/2022

Categories six on saturday, , , 34 Comments on Six on Saturday – 24/12/2022

Christmas Eve. I thought it was going to rain all week but it wasn’t so bad. It’s the USA that’s being hammered now, in a fashion that puts our recent episode in perspective. My thoughts are with you guys, hope you don’t get hit too hard and that it doesn’t spoil Christmas.

The garden is looking pretty terrible, dead black plants all over the place. I’m going to leave it until after Christmas to sort it out. There are of course a few things that have totally shrugged off the cold weather. I have tulips coming up, the species T. bakeri, in the form ‘Lilac Wonder’, which Paddy had doing well in Ireland, so I figured should be OK here. Just leaves so far, but in year two that is very definite progress. I mention it just for reference, it’s not one of my six.

One.
Sue’s glasshouse. This is by way of reassuring Sue that I’m looking after her glasshouse and her babies within it. By some miracle, the electrics blew up the day that the cold weather finished. I need to get a new thermostat, hopefully it will stay mild for a bit yet, the forecast for Monday is making me jittery.

Two.
Wandering round on the first day for well over a week that we didn’t have frost, I was surprised and impressed to see that a couple of my clematis have already made new growth and that it was totally unaffected by the cold. The old leaves are hanging on and have gone black. I’ll cut them back next month.

Three.
Years ago I bought a fern called Araiostegia parvipinnata from CrĂ»g, then a bit later added Araiostegia pulchra. They still lists both but I seem to recall something about them being the same. Certainly they look identical. I now know that one is significantly hardier than the other. A. parvipinnata is still looking reasonable, A. pulchra is mush. Considering that A. parvipinnata was found as an epiphyte in deep and moist shade, in Taiwan, it is extraordinarily accommodating and grows fine here in quite dry conditions. It has very finely textured quadripinnate fronds and bristly rhizomes. There are two plants in the picture, in 10L pots, A. pulchra on the left, needless to say. It grows well in the ground but you don’t get to see the rhizomes like you do in a pot.


Four.
Camellia ‘1001 Summer Nights Jasmine’. For a plant launched at Chelsea in 2021 as summer flowering, this is really not sticking to the script. What is just as surprising is how half open buds on a plant with a subtropical heritage have sailed through the cold spell, better than most camellia buds at the same stage. I wrote about it then, here.

Five.
Peas. Somewhere back where I don’t remember I bought a packet of Meteor peas, intending to make an autumn sowing. Plan A was to sow them in the ground but I fell back on Plan B, which was to sow them in pots on 6th November. I decided their chances of survival in the ground in the non-stop deluge that was November were very poor. I planted them out on my allotment earlier this week. This is as much part of keeping stuff growing in the ground up there as it is a serious attempt to get a picking of peas. I came across the expression “regenerative gardening” a couple of weeks ago in an RHS newsletter, then deleted it before I’d read it. My prediction for 2023 is that you will hear that expression again, I might even do a blog around those very two words.

Six.
I thought I should finish with a flower and there were few to be had. One battered viola, appropriate adjectives for which are to be found under “plucky” in your thesaurus. I’ll go with “mettlesome”.


And that is it for this week. Next week is New Year’s Eve, the cusp of a new year. The shortest day is already behind us, it’s an upward trajectory. These ‘eve of’ posts are well and good but don’t set the bar too high for comments and reactions. They could be slow coming and they might not make much sense. Happy Christmas everyone.

Published by Jim Stephens

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

34 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – 24/12/2022”

    1. Just talked to Sue on FaceTime, in Australia, wandering round fanning herself because she’s too hot. Here it’s cold and damp and dull and I wouldn’t swap it for yours or hers. Hope you come through unscathed. Merry Christmas and Happy New year!

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    1. I don’t make a point of counting but it always interesting to see how many things I can find flowering on new year’s day. It’ll be very few this year. Hope you don’t have any lasting damage from your nasty weather.

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  6. Wonderful new Camellia. I did not want to go outside and take pictures today, it was 35 (1.6 C) here in South Florida this morning with a cold wind coming off the Atlantic! I left my succulents outside so we will see what happens! I will be interested to read about regenerative gardening, that term is new to me. Happy Christmas.

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  7. Tulipa bakeri ‘Lilac Wonder’ has been romping away in foliage here for the past while and threatens, as it has for years, to become an invasive pest. I’ll forgive this tendency when I see the flowers, as I do each year.

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    1. I should probably hold off planting any more until I see how they fare, though for now the idea of them being a bit invasive is quite appealing. I planted T. Sylvestris at the same time but haven’t registered them coming up yet.

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  8. I love the little viola! A splash of color. Here it is a sea of white drifting snow. I will be shoveling the same snow I shoveled yesterday morning as it has drifted back over my driveway. I will shovel it towards the east and hope it stays there instead of blowing back over the driveway. By the time I get all my layers on it is hard to move. I wanted to include a picture of the frost on my window, but the sun is not hitting it right, so you can’t really see it. Oh well! Here are my few cold pictures: https://wisconsingarden.wordpress.com/2022/12/24/december-24-2022-six-on-saturday/

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  11. Yes I thought we had been hammered here but the US weather puts it in the shade. The garden here is blackened and soggy and I have succumbed to the cold from hell. I am eagerly awaiting the New Year when I will once again join the merry SOSers. Your mention of tulips offers me hope. Wishing you and Sue and everyone else who participates a very happy Christmas and a healthy new year.

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  12. It is cold here in the American South. I am in Central Alabama where it is 10 degrees F this morning. We have been below freezing now for 24 hours and it will be another 24 hours before the temp climbs above freezing. This is near record status for us.
    I am with Jim in that I will assess and recalibrate after Christmas. In the meantime, I have done what I can do with plants in the garden shed and in the vinyl greenhouse with heat lamp.
    I did do a survey 2 days ago and here are the photos that I took..

    Merry Christmas

    https://mensgardenvestavia.wordpress.com/?p=912

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  13. My garden is rather black and sludgy but you have found plenty of interesting photos. Is your splendid cat going to feature regularly? He/she is certainly very good at posing. The greenhouse contents look very healthy. My money plant has been covered in flower buds for a few weeks now but I’m wondering whether the cold snap has affected it since they haven’t opened yet. Have a good Christmas and thank you for hosting this Six-on-Saturday. https://grannysgarden229242407.wordpress.com/2022/12/24/six-on-saturday-24-12-2022/

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    1. The cats are my answer to Tony’s pictures of Rhody. The two of them are sisters and I’m currently away, staying with their mum, sister and brother. Bobby, the hairy one, is terrible at posing, she won’t sit still and won’t look towards the camera. For every half acceptable picture ten get deleted.

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  15. Pingback: Six on Saturday: 24 December 2022 – My Tiny Welsh Garden

    1. Italian ryegrass, which because it was getting very late I sowed in cells and planted out, alternated with Phacelia and red clover. The clover got shaded out by the other two and the Phacelia is sprawled on the soil between the grass.

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  18. Six on Saturday: Memorial Trees +


    Here are mine. Check out #6.
    The greenhouse is impressive, not only because of the volume of what is in there, but because it does so well inside, even if only for the season. Such succulents and cacti tend to etiolate inside, no matter how sunny the situation is. If you see my #6, you will see some Aeonium that are at their best during winter, but defoliate somewhat during summer, and really do not want to be houseplants or greenhouse plants. They stretch severely.

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    1. We don’t really have a problem with etiolation, maybe when the light levels are low the plants are dormant because of the temperature, then in summer when they’re growing we get longer days than you, or move them outside.

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      1. Yes, that is what I considered after commenting; not so much about the longer days, but about the winter dormancy. Here, such plants would likely continue to grow somewhat through winter.

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  22. Happy Christmas Jim, you are doing a fine job caring for Sue’s greenhouse, it is a massive responsibility (is this helping?). My first thoughts on your ferns are that they are incredibly tricky to spell and I would imagine pronounce, although I haven’t attempted either. Love the last little viola. I haven’t done a six, but I have posted a message that I hope you will forgive, just this once. https://offtheedgegardening.com/2022/12/24/just-one-little-donkey/

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