Six on Saturday – 20/5/2023

Categories six on saturday, , , 60 Comments on Six on Saturday – 20/5/2023

Can someone tell me, cos I’d really like to know, how you can spend a whole week gardening from dawn till dusk and it’s just as big a mess at the end of the week as it was at the beginning. I’ve pruned, planted, sowed, watered, weeded, shredded, potted, watered; you name it, I’ve done it, and it’s still all to do seemingly.

Six on Saturday is a snapshot of things happening on a Saturday and I have too many things. I was thinking that I would try to make one of my six a view, showing things in context, an angle that looked good, but it means one less individual item. Then I looked at the view shot I’d taken and very conveniently the plant I was going to put in as the first individual item is in it.

One.
Primula prolifera. I collected a bit of seed from some plants of this in a park several years ago and have managed to keep it going since; the more pleasing for the fact that it was swamped out by Persicaria campanulata in the park. Don’t ever plant Persicaria campanulata, it is a monster. The seed of the primula usually germinates readily if sown fresh but I failed last year, either to sow it or to germinate it, so I’m pleased to see that it has survived and is flowering this year. It will get a lot taller as it adds several more whorls of flowers to each stem. The contextual picture shows it growing with Astilbes in the bog garden that used to be a pond before I filled it in.

Two.
I nearly plumped for six foliage items, but it would have meant leaving out flowering things I really wanted to include. I need to do another post on Begonias, I have new things and more to say about some of the old ones. This is a new one, one of two given to me by Bob, (thanks Bob) and which I’m pleased to say are both growing away strongly. This one has a label saying ‘Cool Breeze Emerald’, which doesn’t give you much of a clue to what it actually turns out to look like. The ‘Cool Breeze’ series are another begonia series from Terra Nova Nurseries in the US and while they don’t claim they are frost hardy they do say they will tolerate cool temperatures. It’s in a 5L pot, 9 inches diameter (hope you’re all bilingual on measurements)


Three.
Polystichum munitum, the Western Sword Fern, is very common in the western US and often appears, unremarked upon, in the background of pictures of gardens from there. If is very distinct from the three species of Dryopteris that are ubiquitous in the UK so I am pleased to have it in the garden and pleased that it seems happy to be here. The cool wet spring seems to have suited my ferns very well, this one is producing fronds 3 feet tall, a foot taller than it has done before.


Four.
Rodgersia ‘Bronze Peacock’ is looking mighty fine with its new leaves. I have it growing in ordinary garden soil and it gets too try in summer to really suit it. I should maybe get another plant to go in the bog garden, where it would surely be much happier.


Five.
I’ve always been fond of Deutzia, they just seem to have something about them which many of the common deciduous shrubs lack. When I saw Deutzia ‘Yuki Cherry Blossom’ a few years ago I thought it would be perfect, having all the qualities I liked but staying pretty small. I seemed to mis the bit about it being virtually prostrate and I haven’t yet come up with a support system that is effective but discrete, ideas anyone?


Six.
Does Semiaquilegia ecalcarata hybridise with Aquilegia vulgaris? I sowed the former, from Hardy Plant Society seed, in 2019 and for the first couple of years I had plants about 20cms tall, which then disappeared. This year I have plants around 80cm tall, with a few short and slightly deformed spurs (Semiaquilegia has none) and finer foliage than typical Aquilegia. They look very much like hybrids and if they resist the Aquilegia downy mildew they are welcome indeed.

Three foliage, three flowers, a nice balance. Just get this scheduled and go weevil hunting by torchlight. At least the dry weather has seen off most of the slugs. Rabbits and voles have plagued me and several other allotment holders, all the rabbit fencing is rusting out and some people are quicker to replace their section than others.

Next week looks like good weather too, I just hope we don’t have to wait until October for the next lot of rain, they haven’t lifted last summers hose pipe ban here yet. Have a good week.

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Published by Jim Stephens

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

60 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – 20/5/2023”

  2. Pingback: Six on Saturday: Taking the Cue – Our Forest Garden

  4. I love the dark purple hybrid – it is lovely. I think that perhaps your gardening style is much more precise than mine. I feel like I don’t have enough to do most of the time. My garden, being a combo vegetables and flowers/natives thing, I plant things far too close together, so very few weeds and in fact I often decide what to plant based upon what comes up on its own – no kale to plant this year, and lettuce, well, my first sowing is all volunteer, so I should plant some lettuce tomorrow and see what else I have not stuck in yet.

    I had grand plans of posting first thing this morning, and had the post ready to go, but the day got away from me. Without further ado, here it is:

    https://wisconsingarden.wordpress.com/2023/05/20/may-20-2023-six-on-saturday/

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  5. Pingback: May 20, 2023 Six on Saturday – Gardening in the Prairie

  6. I have added a deutzia this year, a compact variety, but of course it is still smaller than ‘compact’ – the flowers are pretty anyway! The foliage on tyour rodgersia is really striking, both the colour and texure

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  7. Pingback: Six on Saturday: March of the Roses | Rambling in the Garden
  10. Pingback: Six on Saturday – Herbs – My Slice of Mexico

  11. Ferns are looking healthy here too, best in years. Seems the wet spring does have some advantages. I was in Trengwainton the other day and the water / stream garden is full of those yellow primula, plus some pink ones, white arum lilies and blue irises, it looked delightful. Your Rodgersia ‘Bronze Peacock’ is a great colour, but I suspect too big for my garden. Good weather forecast this week so plenty of gardening ahead for you Jim. I’m going to take advantage of the weather to sit outside and read a book or two whilst I watch the bindweed climb ever upwards!

    Six on Saturday | The Heat is On

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  14. Glad to see that ‘Cool Breeze Emerald’ is growing for you. I think it’s a stunner, genuinely velvet green leaves with rich rusty red/burgundy undersides. Given a following wind it gets quite big as well. It overwintered in an unheated green house her as was evergreen until the temperature dipped below freezing for a few nights in a row. The little pots of begonia you gave me,(forgotten the name,(Sorry!)) are all up and now out in the various ‘tropical’ borders.

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    1. That would be ‘Torsa’. ‘Cool Breeze Emerald’ is yet another distinct foliage type for me and I was struck by how it manages to be quite fine and delicate looking while still obviously going to get pretty big. I have a massive rooted leaf of B. ‘Jungle’ in the propagator which I’m hoping is going to produce a shoot or two at some point. Can’t wait to see how that develops.

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  15. Jim, you’ve really outdone yourself with your plant selections this week. I’d like one of each, please…. Seriously, the Begonia ‘Cool Emerald Breeze’ from Terra Nova is one I’d buy and establish in a heartbeat. Many of the hardy Begonias commonly available here, if you can find them at all, have rather plain green leaves. Yours hasn’t turned up locally, and it hasn’t been featured in any of the articles I’ve seen about new introductions. How come all of the choicest new plants go to English gardeners before we have a chance at them over here?? We don’t have Semiaquilegia, either, that I’ve ever found. But I do have an A. vulgaris in nearly the same color, planted with a potted Japanese maple, with the same lovely shade of dark purple flowers. And, it developed downy mildew in April, but still has bloomed well. Yours may well be a hybrid, but whatever it is botanically it is delicious.

    Your garden, so much as you’ve revealed to us in your photos, looks lovely. I read once that gardeners look at their garden and see all that needs doing. Visitors look at the same scenes with appreciation, and realize all that has been accomplished. We’ll never actually get to all that we want to do or think we need to do. So it is nice to sit back once a week and celebrate what we have. Thanks for hosting “The Six” so faithfully. Here are mine for today: https://woodlandgnome.wordpress.com/2023/05/20/six-on-saturday-what-color-is-your-garden-fantasy/

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    1. Terra Nova raised the Garden Angel series too and ‘Garden Angel Blush’ was fabulous in my garden last year, though slow to get going this spring. I think possibly the people who’ve been introducing hardy or near hardy begonias from the wild are perhaps mainly UK people, like Michael Wickenden, Blethyn Wynn-Jones and Nick Macer. Begonias are very niche over here and I luxuriate in having one of the best rare plant fairs take place very near here each year.

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  16. Pingback: Six on Saturday: What Color is Your Garden Fantasy? – Our Forest Garden

    1. As a “no-dig” gardener I spare myself that part, and I only spray when I’m getting desperate, like yesterday on a particularly aggressive sorrel species on my allotment. The weeds still come up and still have to be dealt with though.

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  18. Oh to have so much choice. Your garden visitors are going to have a treat! I love them all but can offer no thoughts on the deutzia! Not amess, but I know what you mean about a week’ worth of work and then still having jobs to do. But it is that time of the year. Apologies ot anyone who sees my six twice. I was trying to be clever and schedule but got the dates mixed up! Here’s my link https://n20gardener.com/2023/05/19/six-on-saturday-teetering-on-the-edge/

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  19. Pingback: Six on Saturday: 20 May 2023 – My Tiny Welsh Garden

    1. So much of gardening consists of things which don’t show (watering), removing stuff that isn’t missed (weeds, prunings) or of slotting in new things such that they look like they’ve always been there. It being obvious that you’ve been there is very often not the effect you want.

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    1. I might move the Deutzia to somewhere more suitable in the autumn. It really is in the wrong place. I can send you fresh seed of the Primula when it ripens; one thing I can be sure of is that there will be far more than I will need.

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      1. Hehehe. Not to brag, but I’ve reduced the mouse/vole population by 10 so far – who knows what that translates to vole family repro… Hopefully, they’re getting the idea this is not a winter salad bar. Last winter they devoured bark off several conifers, flowering shrubs, and a lovely Acer. With 60cm snow cover, they had a field day!

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      2. My total is only two voles and two mice, plus a baby bunny. For the moment, things are growing unmolested. I don’t want to think about 60cm of snow, but does it stop the ground from freezing?

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      3. Ground freezes without fail. We’ve had two cats who were excellent huntresses, one is still with us, but was forced to become indoor only – they killed indiscriminately, and anything that moves was a target. A fox would have been no match for the voles. But a perimeter fence keeps them and the deer at bay. Only an owl would be able to get those blasted voles now. Until I brought home the snap traps! You’d get downright shirty if I showed you the damage the voles did! Seemed to prefer camping out amidst the dormant heaping mounds of several Siberian Iris – munched their ways completely to the roots – there was nothing left! Only now am I seeing any signs of the life on the iris. I thought for sure they were completely wiped out! The Silberlocke seemed to also be a favorite, as was a quince, a philadelphius. Pretty much anything and everything in a 30m patch got tasted or devoured.

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  25. The Deutzia does have an elegance about it that other flowering shrubs lack, I agree. As to support for something that wants to be prostrate, I’m not sure. I have found twist easies from to be good for a lot of things https://www.plantsupports.co.uk/c/twist+easy_s_packs_of_3. The aquilegia cross looks great.
    Here’s my Six for this week. I’m also having trouble keeping to the Six and I must confess to a diversion into the life of Cedric Morris.

    https://www.hortusbaileyana.co.uk/2023/05/alliums-and-iris.html

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  28. I’m glad you gave us a wide shot of the garden, it looks lush! I really would like to visit one day when I am on my wanderings. Begonia is great, but I think you knew I would say that. One thing I didn’t feature in my six is the Begonia ‘Claret Jug’ just emerging from below the soil and a surrounding of seedlings. There were other tuberous begonias around, would they have hybridised? Here are mine https://offtheedgegardening.com/2023/05/20/six-on-saturday-7/

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    1. It would be an honour and a pleasure to have you visit, you are welcome any time. I’d be pretty surprised if Begonia ‘Claret jug’ was surrounded by seedlings; it’s one of the bulbil producing forms of B. grandis if I’m not mistaken, and will produce swarms of plantlets from the bulbils, but vegetatively. I just “sowed” a second tray of bulbils of ‘Sapporo’ from last year, it’s a lovely form, and I’m trying to steel myself to not do the same with a gazillion more ‘Torsa’. Want any ‘Torsa’ bulbils? Don’t even look at the price on Growild.

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  29. I think a growing garden is similar to growing children. When you see the children every day, you don’t notice the changes, while others do. To my eyes your garden looks great – one that a lot of effort has been put into. Your hard work has been rewarded – your garden looks wonderful to others.
    Lovely to see the three foliage topics, I love beautiful, textured leaves that too often we overlook.

    This is my final Six on Saturday for a few weeks, as I’ll be away, and will catch up with all your efforts toward the end of June. Here’s mine for this week.

    Purple, White and a Splash of Orange

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    1. The garden itself is fairly much under control and coming along, but behind the camera are empty pots, bags of weeds, things still to plant and much much more. Have a really good time when you’re away and feel free to post a six from any garden you happen to be in on any Saturday you’re away.

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    1. The Rodgersia comes up as the primroses and bluebells fade away for the summer. It should be getting competition from Fuchsia boliviana but that hasn’t come up yet, which is concerning. It isn’t reckoned to be hardy but has been there for many years.

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  32. Pingback: Six on Saturday. 20.05.2023 | Lead up the Garden Path
  33. Pingback: Six on Saturday | The Heat is On – Cornwall in Colours

  34. Sword fern seems to be everywhere. We do not like to discard it though. If some must be removed to install something else, we relocate it, even if beyond a refined landscape. We now happen to have a designated situation for the next few to be in need of relocation, and it happens to be within a landscape situation. When enough get relocated there, we will resume relocation into the outskirts of landscapes. Aquilegia seems to be performing well everywhere north of the Equator except here now. I certainly would like to be able to grow it.
    I almost missed Six on Saturday this week because I am on vacation. I posted six pictures from before I left though. I do not take many pictures while on vacation, and I must still process what I got.

    Six on Saturday: Rhody Obligation

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    1. It was a bit of a case of me standing in the middle of the mess and pointing the camera at an orderly bit. My working area, the hard bits by the house, is not going to feature in a six any time soon.

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