Six on Saturday – 5/8/2023

Categories six on saturday55 Comments on Six on Saturday – 5/8/2023

Storm Antoni will be lashing the South West right through Saturday, just what we need. Remember back in June, when we getting desperate for rain? Rarely has the warning “be careful what you wish for” been so apposite.

Grotty weather has made gardening all but impossible for quite a bit of this week, so I’ve been revisiting the business of making videos. I do it so infrequently that I pretty much have to start from scratch each time, teaching myself how to do it. I did eventually upload something to YouTube, I’ll put the link at the bottom. It’s also the week I closed my Twitter account, the new logo was the final push I needed.

Any how, what we’re here for is six on Saturday, where a whole bunch of us get to post pictures of half a dozen goings on in our gardens each week, then put a link to such posts in my comments section down below. Full details here. It’s high summer, though you wouldn’t know it, so finding six things should be a breeze(!), which broadly speaking it was for me. Things have been slow to get going flower-wise, but they’re getting there. I don’t know if it’s my imagination but flower colour on quite a few things seems particularly intense this year, so perhaps there is a silver lining of sorts.

One.
The pineapple lilies, Eucomis, are one of those groups of plants that flower for a long time as well as having interesting foliage, making them good value for the space and effort they take up. We have several, mostly in pots which get put in the polytunnel for the winter when they die down. This one is Eucomis montana, which is handsome in flower but being fly pollinated, is decidedly malodorous.

Two.
One of my sisters paid us a visit, during which I told her about my nightly pest forays. A couple of days later, an Amazon parcel arrived containing an LED head torch. It opened my eyes to irridescence in Begonias and other forest floor dwelling plants. I did a short blog about it here. Basically the plants have cleverly adapted to maximise the light they collect in the very low light environments they inhabit. An accidental consequence is that, like butterflies and humming birds, they are iridescent in the right lighting conditions. I took this picture with my phone, at night using flash. The plant is Begonia Cool Breeze ‘Emerald’. With just the head torch the effect was similar but not quite so vivid.

Three.
I bought Geranium ‘Blue Sunrise’ late last year as a reduced bargain. Earlier this year I decided it could go where I had planted Cosmos peucedanifolius the year before only for it to have not come up this spring. I did actually find the apparently dead top of it when I was planting the Geranium but ignored it. I now have the Geranium with Cosmos coming up through the middle of it. One to unravel when they both die down in the autumn.

Four.
Without intending to, I have picked three gold leaved plants for this week’s six. This one is Fuchsia magellanica ‘Aurea’, less well known than ‘Genii’ and smaller in leaf, flower and stature. It is also, at least with us and so far, less troubled by capsid and flea beetle. It has had gall mite in previous years, which I watch out closely for and remove immediately. I had seen almost no gall mite until about a week ago, then it seemed to explode. Around eight pot plants have been disposed of completely, too much affected to be worth trying to save.

Five.
The other gold leaved plant is Hosta ‘Gold Standard’. Most of our Hostas are in pots, mainly so they can be hidden away when they get to look terrible, as many of them now do because of slugs and sun scorch. This one got shoved in amongst the ferns to plug the gap left by two Athyrium ferns shrivelling in the June sun. One of them, ‘Burgundy Lace’, is making a respectable comeback now we have rain, but the Hosta is doing a fine job of lighting up a somewhat dull area and I have no plans to move it just yet.

Six.
I’m fine on items one to five, then up comes six and there are three or four contenders for one slot. Sorry, Mangave, your time will surely come. You too, Dahlias, if you get through tomorrow. Crocosmia ‘Carmin Brilliant’ gets it on merit but against my true inclinations. It’s different from, but not really much of an improvement on the type widely naturalised across Cornwall, including in my garden.

That’s it for another week. I think we’re due to get some slightly better weather next week, which at least means our final two NGS days next weekend have a chance of being dry. Weeds on the allotment are getting out of hand too, so I won’t be idle. The link to my video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBacOFstQok

Published by Jim Stephens

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

55 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – 5/8/2023”

  2. Pingback: August is blooming (and swimming)! | Mom in the Garden

  3. I’m impressed with your YouTube video. I was surprised at the size of your garden and the amount of planting, it was a really enjoyable tour. Also, it was lovely to have a voice put to the name!

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    1. I bought Crocosmia ‘Twilight Fairy Crimson’ a few weeks back and so far it is looking like a first rate red. American raised so you should be able to get hold of it. Much shorter than Lucifer, which may not be an advantage.

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  13. Jim, you have such an interesting post this week, and such beautifully grown plants to share! Your sister was right on the money with her thoughtful gift. I love the story of your Cosmos and Geranium. Good for the Cosmos for finally deciding to live. My motto is, ‘Plants just want to live’ because so often we give up something for dead, only to find it later still alive and making its best effort. I had an apparently dead B. Rex revive after I chucked its rootball under a shrub one day and re-used its pot for something else. Three weeks later, there were some little Begonia leaves emerging under the shrub. A. ‘Burgundy Lace’ is another stalwart fern that may go down for a while, but don’ count it out. It returns when conditions- like your grotty weather- invite it to grow again. All such uplifting stories this week, Jim!

    Here are my six for the first week of August, also predicated on abundant rain and cooler weather: https://woodlandgnome.wordpress.com/2023/08/05/six-on-saturday-augusts-promise/

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    1. One of the articles I put a link to listed a lot of plants that can be iridescent. It can be hard to distinguish a sheen from a waxy leaf surface from true iridescence, but Begonia grandis and B. sutherlandii certainly show it on the inner leaves, not on those that get plenty of light.

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  15. Pingback: Six on Saturday: August’s Promise – Our Forest Garden

    1. Our shasta daisies are half the height they were when they were young. I don’t know whether they’ve exhausted the soil or have built up pests that stop them reaching their potential. They still flower the same.

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    1. I guess that’s the way with plants, they seem tough and indestructible until something nasty comes along and never goes away again and is then joined by another nasty or two and the plant is tough and indestructible no longer. We have quite a lot of different Fuchsias, I’m hoping at least some will be resistant.

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    1. We had two F. ‘Genii’, one of which I dug out a month back because it looked terrible from flea beetle damage, the other is still not flowering because of capsid. I don’t know why flea beetle has suddenly become a serious pest, or what I can do about it. The insect apocalypse is not evenly spread it seems.

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  24. Well it is truly blowing a hooley here this morning, thank goodness without the rain (though I think that arrived when I was still sleeping). Your hosta is looking great! I composted mine a couple of years ago because the state of it stressed me so much. A shame about the fuchsias. One of mine isn’t looking too happy, but I don’t think it is gall mite. Maybe I will include it next week and you can have a look.

    Six on Saturday | blame it on the weatherman

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    1. When you have gall mite there’s not a lot of room for doubt. Capsid, and in the last couple of years, flea beetle, are the ones where there’s moderate damage and usually no sign of the culprit.

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  26. I was rather worried about the gall mite attacking your fuchsias as I have rather a lot of hardy ones, so far haven’t seen any problems, thank goodness. Hosta Gold standard is looking beautiful and certainly shines out of the border. I also like your red Crocosmia, much better than the wild one!
    My six are here……https://www.leadupthegardenpath.com

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    1. Fuchsia gall mite was inevitable here eventually, there’s a lot of around and so many untended old F. magellanica bushes everywhere that are prone to it. It turned up about five years ago and has got steadily worse in spite of my best efforts at spotting and removing affected material as quickly as possible. I’m getting rid of anything that seems relatively susceptible and has become extensively infected in a short time.

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  27. I hope your garden gets through the latest storm, Jim. It’s something everyone in its path could do without this ‘summer’. The pineapple lilies are fabulous, so exotic! What a thoughtful sister you have – the head torch is such a good idea. The hosta is looking good – the one I have in a pot has been so badly munched there’s little of it remaining.
    My post for this week is here:

    Shades of Autumn

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    1. The explanation for the iridescence is complex and it just seems utterly extraordinary to me that mere lowly plants could pull off such a trick. They’re not so mere or lowly as we think.

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  29. I have a very small eucomis that needs to be planted out, but I have a problem with both space and decision making. I think you have just solved the problem, I will plant it in a pot. The lit begonia is incredible, what a nice sister you have. The slugs and snails will be having lots of fun in the garden today. Hope you come away lightly after Storm A.

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    1. We have used ‘plant it in a pot’ to solve a problem so many times it has become a massive problem in itself. I’m not liking storm Antoni, and what’s that about anyway, what’s wrong with Anthony?

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  30. Pingback: Six on Saturday 5.8.2023 | Lead up the Garden Path

  31. Love the eucomis ! The groups of flowers really give a successful whole. No Six for me this week but I can only send you all some warmth and sunshine from the South of France. It seems that July is rather rainy this year further north….

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  32. That Hosta really does seem to glow in that spot. And wow to the iridescent begonia – I’ll have to read the your post blog later. Gall mite sounds like a real pain. Box moths have finally struck in my garden – well the caterpillars have. I fear the box balls will have to go soon – I just can’t be bothered trying to battle another pest https://onemanandhisgardentrowel.wordpress.com/2023/08/05/six-on-saturday-5-august-2023/

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    1. Our one and only box ball seems to have been adopted by our cat as a relatively soft landing when jumping down from my big water tank. Either that or there’s an elephant loose. I think I’d almost welcome a reason to get rid of it and give the space to something more interesting, or at least different.

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