Six on Saturday – 8/4/2023

Categories six on saturday66 Comments on Six on Saturday – 8/4/2023

What a difference a bit of sunshine makes, to both the gardener and the garden. We’ve had quite low temperatures at night this week but no frost, and there’s a sense that the garden is going through the phases, Scillas and crocus finished flowering, now leafy; tulips, primroses, Erythroniums, Muscari taking their turn. Things are shooting, the slugs have noticed, I have noticed that the slugs have noticed. My outdoor adult vine weevil total is already four. I saw the first hedgehog of the year yesterday; I knew he was about because I’d seen droppings.
Still, enough chit chat, my task, and yours, is to pick the six things that are happening in your garden today that you think might interest the rest of us, and to put them out there. Blog, Tweet, Instagram, Mastodon, whatever. Then don’t be coy about them, stick a link in my comments below so we can find your little beauties. Easy; onwards.

One.
The speaker at our Hardy Plant meeting this week was talking about Primula sieboldii and Epimediums. She had plants for sale. I have a bad track record with both, buying more to kill would have been foolish. I bought just one Primula sieboldii. Admittedly, I’d bought three of her Epimediums at the Cornwall Garden Society show last weekend.
Erythroniums on the other hand, seem to quite like our garden, so buying them doesn’t feel like utter folly. Except that the minute you get beyond a fairly limited range of widely available forms, the price goes through the roof. This one was picked up at a small local nursery where they don’t do eye watering prices for anything. Erythronium revolutum ‘Illand Pink’.


Two.
Tulipa sylvestris will have been something that a sixer posted and enthused about. I’ve planted moderate numbers over the last two seasons and they are flowering happily, but mostly flat on their faces in the dirt. Things have improved with sunshine, but the flowers are a bit messed up. Erythronium ‘White Beauty’ in the background. I dotted the tulips about, figured I was more likely to get some of them into ideal conditions that way, but it does look a bit odd.


Three.
I think this is Anemone nemorosa ‘Mart’s Blue’ but I’m not sure. It could be ‘Buckland Blue’. It’s the best blue form we have, whatever its name. The wood anemones are happy enough to seed around to a degree, but the seedlings all seem to be almost white.


Four.
Erythronium ‘Susannah’ is my one foray into the world of snazzy Erythroniums. It’s bulking up very very slowly and tempting me to get more. Fortunately by bulb buying season, It’s long gone below ground, so I usually forget.


Five.
Brunnera ‘Jack Frost’ is a fine plant and we have it in a couple of places in the garden. It self sows a little, and this is a seedling that got left to occupy an awkward corner at the foot of a 2m Miscanthus, now cut down. It’s a much better doer than ‘Jack Frost’ itself. I see there’s another seedling, with rather better foliage, growing right in the Miscanthus clump. It can stay there.


Six
I built an extension onto Sue’s glasshouse a couple of years ago, increasing it’s size by 50%. Fleetingly, it felt spacious.

The Propagator’s line about there being no such thing as too many plants comes to mind. I look forward to a weekend of seed sowing, taking cuttings, potting things on and up and complaining all the while that I don’t have enough space.

Published by Jim Stephens

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

66 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – 8/4/2023”

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  14. I see that my Brunnera is quite different to yours and it doesn’t appear to self seed at all. The leaves mostly disappear over winter so I am always holding my breath at this time of year to see if it reappears. I tried a couple of Erythronium in my woodland border, but without any success. Same with the Imperial fritillaria, in a pot I managed to save them from the S&S but they never flowered so I planted them in the ground. Possibly the wrong place. Colour is returning to my garden now in spades!

    Six on Saturday | Easter Blues (almost)

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  15. Thank you for reminding me of how attractive Brunnera macrophylla can be. I’ll be on the lookout for ‘Jack Frost’! As for pests, ambrosia beetles destroyed a weather-stressed Japanese maple last month. That’s my first encounter with those beetles, and it was not a pleasant encounter. But on a happier note, wildflowers are appearing throughout the garden: https://aftereden.blog/2023/04/08/six-on-saturday-8-april-2023/

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    1. I was puzzled why they were called ambrosia beetles and have learned they feed on ambrosia produced by fungi they infect their host tree with. So tree destroying beetles get to live on Ambrosia, food of the gods. Funny old world.

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  17. Jim, so happy to hear that your garden is also waking up with the spring sun. Your Erythronium revolutum ‘Illand Pink’ is just stunning. I’ve not seen one like it before. I’ve grown the common yellow and white varieties before and just love their graceful flowers, but haven’t had one last long enough to grow into such a healthy clump as yours. You didn’t mention the white Muscari, but they are quite lovely, too. E. ‘Susannah’ certainly is elegant, but the total effect of ‘Illand Pink’ just awakens my plant lust to see whether it is even available on the gauche side of the pond. So many plants, so little space… Sue is so lucky to have you to indulge her passion for succulents. My six this week are very green and pedestrian compared to yours, but here goes, anyway: https://woodlandgnome.wordpress.com/2023/04/08/six-on-saturday-the-joys-of-april/

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    1. Erythronium revolutum is an American species, so you surely should be able to get selected forms of it over there. I suspect ‘Illand Pink’ was just a name they coined to sell a plant that had lost its label, there are several pink forms of revolutum available (ish) over here. Paul Christian suspects they are introgressed hybrids with E. californicum. The pale Muscari is ‘Valerie Finnis’.

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      1. Thank you for that additional information, Jim. I normally order bulbs from the local supplier mentioned in the post. They have carried both yellow and white forms in the past, but I’ve not seen the pink. If it is a hybrid with E. californicum that might explain why they haven’t supplied it here in our area. I’ve used it quite a bit in container plantings for early color. It is considered unusual here, even though it is based on a North American native. We can get M. ‘Valerie Finnis,’ which is one I enjoy a lot. For some reason yours look more white in the photo than powder blue. Your photo inspired me to add a few dozen M. aucheri ‘White Magic’ to my order for bulbs to plant this fall.

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      5. Window shopping is always fun, Jim. I love to look at UK nursery sites sometimes, too. Always frustrating to see the lovelies we can’t get here. The Heath’s growers are located in Holland. They may have the ability to do business in Europe. Lovely couple who owns the shop- a family business into the third generation, at least. They recently built a glass house extension on the shop to allow them to carry more growing plants. All in all, a very dangerous place for someone like us to visit, unsupervised….

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      7. The Chaenomeles contorta I ordered from a GA nursery this spring already looks dead. That was a fast $55.00. It arrived during a wicked weather spell and perhaps stayed in the garage too long. I was too slow to unwrap it, apparently, and it quickly turned brown once I moved it outside in some sheltered shade. Now I can only hope the roots survived and I’ll see a sign of life sometime soon. I’d rather bring plants home in the car than trust the mail in most cases, but made an exception to get that very unusual and hard to find variety. C’est la vie… I look longingly at the catalogs and websites and then usually manage a modicum of self-discipline.

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    1. I meant to move that clump of Erythroniums last year but then they die down and the space they were going to go is full of something else. I’m looking at the place I planted out a lot of Cyclamen hederifolium from your seed and thinking they’d cohabit quite well, the Erythroniums leafing out as the cyclamen wind down, then all getting hidden by ferns and Maianthemum later on. You can’t hold back on planting Erythroniums, they need to go in when everything else is in full growth.

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      1. Pleased to hear you have a reasonable result. I’ve taken to growing things in pots to then place them at the right time ie either when the bulbs are up so that I don’t over plant, or when things are dormant, and then discover them lurking underground. I’m surprised you have run out of space, as for me with my very small garden that is of course understandable.

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      2. Running out of space is not very meaningful in that a lot of things are only up, or in leaf, for part fo the year so offer scope for combining with other things that are active at a different time of year. Our garden is pretty jammed full, however you look at it.

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  31. That’s an impressive amount of plants in the glasshouse! Well done Sue. The pink Erythronium is rather lovely, I didn’t know they were available in that colour, but then I don’t seem to have any luck growing them, so only keep trying (and failing!) with Pagoda. E. ‘Susannah’ is also one to be impressed by.
    Here’s my humble contribution for this week:

    Easter Weekend

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    1. Pagoda has spread itself around a bit, whether by seed or accidental lifting of bulbs I don’t know. It’s OK but there’s a lot of leaf for the amount of flower.

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  32. Six on Saturday: Skooter Approved


    Something is terribly wrong with my post. All the text was deleted, so I must start over. I will edit eventually, but . . . . I am just too tired now.
    My #5 is white grape hyacinth, like in the lower left of your #3. I know that it is not the topic of that picture, but it gratifying to see others are still enjoying it.

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      1. Oh, I should have remembered ‘Valerie Finnis’. I have refrained from procuring any more than the simplest blue and white because the garden is so crowded. I know that I can not stop growing anything that has important history.

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  36. Lovely, thanks for hosting Jim! Jack Frost and his relatives are great, aren’t they? Despite a morning low of 1 Celsius on Monday I found an adult lily beetle on my martagon lily around midday that day, he was swiftly dispatched between thumb and forefinger (not as much crunch as a vine weevil but still very pleasing). Do you use the vine weevil nematodes? I do, but I find them very hit and miss – I think this is about my application rather than their effectiveness though. Have a great bank holiday weekend 😊

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    1. I have used nematodes against vine weevil, they’re the most effective thing amateur gardeners have available. I didn’t use them last autumn and I think our Fuchsias have been clobbered as a result.

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