Six on Saturday – 11/2/2023

Categories six on saturday50 Comments on Six on Saturday – 11/2/2023

It’s light a little earlier in the morning, starting to be noticeable. And things are growing; slowly, but surely. Most of last year’s dead stuff is gone, Crocus and snowdrops are flowering. It’s not raining. Situation normal ……

One.
I haven’t done a WordPress before and after shot for a while, so when I decided to chop this grass down it seemed a good opportunity. I needed a clear shot of the Camellia behind it, to go in a talk I’m doing about Camellias. Molinia caerulea subsp. arundinacea ‘Transparent’ had to go. The Camellia is ‘Bob Hope’.


Two.
I was pleased to notice leaves coming up of Cyclamen repandum. Leaves from corms and leaves from newly germinated seed. Pleased because I had completely forgotten planting them and spotted them before I’d pulled any out by mistake. There’s a painstaking weeding/leaf removal job needs doing around them.


Three.
The considerable numbers of Crocus tomasinianus (mostly) that I have planted in the last few years seem to have settled in well and evaded the perils of later season planting out. They are spreading far and wide too, coming up miles away from where they were planted. I’m happy with that.


Four.
I must go back through last year’s pictures to see how Crocus tomasinianus ‘Eric Smith’ performed last year. They’re in a small terracotta pot and have languished all but forgotten in the greenhouse since the foliage died down last year, Looking really pretty now. Look closely and there is lilac flecking on the petals; it’s easier to spot in the photograph than on the actual plant.


Five.
Some things open their flowers so slowly you lose interest. This double Hellebore has been opening at a glacial pace for weeks. It’s going in this six, ready or not. I’m moving on, you won’t see it again.


Six.
I bought some Hippeastrum bulbs for Sue last year or the year before. Among them was this Hippeastrum papilio, which sounds like it might be a species. (And is, I just looked it up) I hope it lasts a few more days, until Sue gets home to see it.


This is my 300th six on saturday post, a milestone of sorts. I’ve kept a record, just a word document, and it’s been very useful as a quick way to find out when things flowered in previous years, and to track down photos from the dates.

Should you not yet have stepped onto the carousel that is SoS, spring, which is just around the corner, must be the perfect time to do so. Just picture six items from your garden, or related in some way, and post them on your blog, or Twitter feed or wherever, and stick a link to them from my comments section. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. There’s a participants guide but you barely need it.

Published by Jim Stephens

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

50 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – 11/2/2023”

  6. Pingback: Six on Saturday: Gearing Up | Rambling in the Garden
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  11. Just keep reminding me that spring is around the corner. It is true that we have more light, and actually fairly warm weather for Wisconsin in February (Ice castles melted, so if you didn’t get your tickets early – too late!). The latest blanket of snow seems in keeping with the Ground Hog prediction of six more weeks of winter. Sunny today, and the snow makes it seem even brighter! Dreaming of spring!
    https://wisconsingarden.wordpress.com/2023/02/11/february-11-2023-six-on-saturday/

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  12. Congratulations on the 300, that’s some milestone. Love the Hippeastrum and the crocuses. I planted a lot of the Crocus tomasinianus but haven’t seen any sign of them yet this year, the white ones are gorgeous. My hellebores are barely above ground, but I am keeping faith that they will at some point appear. The longer days are most welcome though yesterday it was so foggy around here that you’d have thought it was dusk all day!

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  17. I do love the crocus and Hellebore, but the Hippeastrum is a stunner! Hopefully Sue will get home in time to see it in flower.
    Nothing from me this week. Tomorrow is forecast to be HOT at 35C, so I am hoping I can catch up on some reading of Six on Saturdays!

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  19. Pingback: Six On Saturday: Keeping faith | n20gardener

    1. My repandums have had leaves for several weeks, the next exiting milestone is spotting the first flower buds. I got seed of white repandum from the Cyclamen Society this year, no sign of them germinating yet.

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  25. Not raining here either. We’ve had quite a run of dry days so I’ve been able to get out there most days, which is great. I’m with you on the Hellebores – I’ve been checking the buds for weeks and whilst a few opened early on, that was it and the rest are doing nothing. Don’t they realise we have Saturday deadlines to meet?

    Here’s mine for this week.
    https://www.hortusbaileyana.co.uk/2023/02/crocus-and-catkins.html

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  27. Hi Jim. Good idea to start the before / after in WP, I’ll have to do it again! The crocus tomasinianus are so pretty ; there are some at my parents’, and I should add some here too ( because I’m fed up with the yellow crocuses, which always come first… !)
    My double hellebore is about the same stage as yours and is very slow to open. Here are my Six this week. https://fredgardenerblog2.wordpress.com/2023/02/11/six-on-saturday-11-02-23/

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    2. Nothing wrong with the yellow ones Fred, they are the first here too, but are such a welcome spot of sunshine in the garden. soon to be joined by the purple ones and so far they haven’t been blown over by wind and rain!

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  30. Your Crocus are rad. I almost always prefer white (It seriously is my favorite color.), but I do sort of like the more familiar purply Crocus tomasinianus to the white ‘Eric Smith’. Goodness, that is such a huge species name that I copied and pasted it rather than try to spell it. Is the species purple or blue? It looks more purple here, but I think of it as being sort of purplish blue. Anyway, that unknown color just seems so natural for it. Also, I sort of like it ‘for’ the color. There are plenty of other flowers that happen to excel at white.
    These are my Six:https://tonytomeo.com/2023/02/11/six-on-saturday-brief-winter/

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    1. I planted a couple of forms of C. tomasinianus, ‘Barr’s Purple’ and ‘Ruby Giant’, in clumps of one variety but in the same beds. It’s quite hard now to distinguish many of the original clumps and there are certainly more than two colour variations, so presumably I now have seedlings in and around the originals. Mostly, they seem paler and smaller than in their first year, more like a naturalised wild species. I must look back at earlier pictures but any differences could be in the photo rather than the flowers. I have often reflected on how some exceptional Camellias don’t ever seem to have become very popular and there are a couple of whites I’ve been admiring of late, ‘Laura Schafer’, which is American, and ‘Roza Harrison’, which is English, and there are a lot of whites so a good one has to very good to stand out, and both do. I put pictures of ‘Laura Schafer’ on the ICS website because there were none. Really good dark glossy foliage, tidy upright habit, pure white relatively resilient and very elegant flowers, good every year. You ever come across it? https://camellia.iflora.cn/Cutivars/Detail?latin=Laura%20Schafer

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      1. No, the name does not even seem to be familiar. It looks familiar though, from old landscapes. While growing Camellia, I sort of wondered why the vast majority of them are pink. More people prefer red. I mean, red is the favorite color of many people, but not many consider pink to be their favorite color. (Technically, pink is not even a real color, but is instead a tint of red; but that is another story.) Yet, we grew only a few red cultivars, and fewer white cultivars. Most were pink. ‘Purity’ became surprisingly popular when we started growing it again, perhaps because some older people remembered its past popularity. It is still my favorite, although I do not commonly recommend it. The small flowers can be rather boring for those who prefer flashiness. I think that it only became popular because Coco Chanel liked it so much.
        Extensively bred perennials should be sterile, so should not naturalize, but, as you know, some can. Fancy freesias can not only change color as they grow, but can produce a few seed that grow into feral freesias that are more prolific by seed. The feral sort are rather pale white with a bit of lavender, so are not so pretty, but are wickedly fragrant, even more so than the fancy hybrids.

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    1. Last year seems a lifetime ago, I’d have to check on invoices for two or three companies and I’m sorry but I’m not going to. It won’t have been at the Propagators epic levels, probably a couple of hundred crocus. Things like ‘Eric Smith’ will have been just five. I’d risk a clump in the garden I’m thinking now, so I’ll have to check where that came from. Potterton’s maybe.

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      1. Oh sorry Jim, I didn’t mean you to count all the bulbs, just to have an idea of how many of Eric Smith that you planted in that pot, to get an idea how they bulked up, From five last year or thereabouts to this is all I wanted to know, as I am just learning about putting crocus into pots. I tried five too per pot, but most of mine are not as special as yours and will end up planted up in the garden, in the next few weeks, as I find out where the spare places are,

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      2. I can’t find where I got ‘Eric Smith’ from, my information systems have failed me. Pottertons don’t currently list it and I don’t remember buying from any other specialist bulb company. I think it must have been five in the pot, and I put them in a six in 2022 so bought them in 2021 or 2020. If I find out more I’ll let you now.

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      3. No need to go to that trouble Jim, I get the idea. Lovely crocus and worth growing in a pot, as I think it would have to compete too much from the whites of the snowdrops here.

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      4. I was wanting to get more to plant in the garden. They must have come from Pottertons, they’re the only supplier listed by the RHS. Don’t have them in their list at the moment though, maybe just out of season.

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