Storm Ciaran came and went and in spite of dire warnings we escaped with very little damage as it seems to have tracked a little further south than it might have, with the strongest winds hitting the Channel Islands and northern France. The garden did get something of a thrashing though and I think it has reached the point where when it dries up a little, I shall do quite a bit of cutting down.
I haven’t been outside a lot this week, I’m becoming a fair weather gardener. Between todays showers I had a prowl round and found half a dozen things to fill the Six on Saturday brief, a six part snapshot of the garden this Saturday. New participants are always very welcome, it’s a very simple concept, explained in full here.
One.
It’s a bit worrying that I was just about to put in a plant (a Camellia) that I included last week. I didn’t have much by way of backups either. Nerine bowdenii have been pathetic this year. Hardly any flowers and not much sign of leaves coming up yet either. I hope I haven’t lost a lot of the bulbs. I may have planted too many annuals too close and shaded them too much during the summer when they wanted sun to bake the bulbs a bit. They’re a pretty strident pink and a little goes a long way, so even the few flowers they have are going to get noticed.
Two.
Back in early spring I was disappointed when my Passiflora ‘Damsel’s Delight’ didn’t look to have survived the winter. I scratched around and find a few slug nibbled shoots, dug it up and put it in the greenhouse in a pot. It took a long time to get going but eventually took off. I was just a little concerned that it might have been grafted and that all I was growing was rootstock, so I was pleased to see a flower bud some weeks ago. It has taken forever to open and in fact there are two flowers; true to type too, which is great. It can go back in the ground next spring.
Three.
There’s nothing especially unusual about primroses producing the odd bloom in the autumn. Then again, SoS rules don’t call for things to be unusual, so it’s going in.
Four.
Begonia ‘Xanthina Marmorea’. There are times when buying a plant becomes easier because I have confidence in the person selling it. One of the RCM group members had a sales table at Tregrehan Plant Fair this year, and does one at the RCM group AGM at Rosemoor every October. I will have bought this Begonia at one or the other. It is pretty fabulous and the leaves are going to get bigger still. Then with a bit of luck it will have yellow flowers. It’s a hybrid dating from 1854, which is very old for a Begonia, a hybrid between B. xanthina and B. hatacoa var. hatacoa. It won’t be hardy but I will try to propagate it from leaf cuttings next year, then bed it out for the summer.
Five.
Hydrangeas will often produce an unseasonal flower or two; this one is on H. serrata ‘Cap Sizun’. It’s a French raised variety that looks to me to be a serrata x macrophylla cross. Cap Sizun is on the north coast of France and is not somewhere I’d have wanted to be on Wednesday this week.
Six.
Finally, Pittosprum tenuifolium ‘Nutty’s Leprachaun’. I gave this a bit of a haircut earlier in the year; before it got going in the spring if I remember rightly. I would have expected it to produce new shoots in spring and early summer with green leaves, then for it to stop growing and turn dark purple. I think it did all that, then decided to produce a late flush of new growth, green against purple. It’s a good look which I much prefer to the dingy dark purple, but I can’t help thinking it shouldn’t be looking like this in November and that there might be a price to pay in susceptibility to winter cold. Winter is when you want evergreens to look their best, not their worst.
There seems to be no immediate prospect of the weather changing, no frost for the next couple of weeks at least, plenty of showery rain, some sun in between. It’s not especially conducive to gardening but it’s getting pretty messy out there so I might have to brave it. Have a good week, wherever you are.
garden ruminations 
The edges of the petals on that hydrangea are so pretty! They look like something made in crafter’s shop. Glad that you guys made it through the storm alright and that there’s still so much blooming!
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Sad to hear that your garden is a mess following the storm, but am thankful to know you were spared severe storm damage. My compliments on your nice rescue on the gorgeous Passiflora ‘Damsel’s Delight’! I look forward to seeing more of her in years to come.
Thanks for hosting–here is my contribution for the week.
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Refreshing to see some color. I have always loved passionflower, but it is not at all hardy here – sad. The pink Nerine made me smile. I could find only three things to include and they all point to the inevitability of Winter.
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Glorious nerines – and a very neat pitttosporum! I looked at my P Tom Thumb today and wondered if it was too late to give it a trim…what do you think, Jim? Thanks for hosting, as always https://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com/2023/11/04/sis-on-saturday-not-just-a-gift-horse/
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Glad to hear the storm passed you by. Your Passion Flower is lovely. I’ve been thinking of growing one. The problem is where to put it. My six this week: https://stoneyknob.wordpress.com/2023/11/04/six-on-saturday-parched/
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I am increasingly puzzled by the varieties of Pittosporum I see on blogs. I have never seen any here. Except P. tobira – ugh. I read about the storm here and am glad to hear your garden fared well. Fabulous begonias as usual and I like the Nerine. Thanks for hosting. https://theshrubqueen.com/2023/11/04/six-on-saturday-experimental-fall-greens/
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Pittosporum tobira is grown here, both the normal and the dwarf forms, but really need a slightly warmer climate than ours. Mostly we grow P. tenuifolium and its numerous cultivars, but in all but the mildest areas they are liable to get hit very hard by frost every few years. There’s then a number of other species that you see very occasionally, like P. anomalum, that I have. P. eugenioides is the only one I’ve seen that I’d consider growing if I had room.
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Thank you, I will look the other Pittosporums up. I like the plum colored varieties as I can’t grow Loropetalum here and I miss it.
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ha! i swear your garden mocks my garden! 😉 here is mine: https://onerenrising.wordpress.com/2023/11/04/circles-of-nature/
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My garden has no right to mock anybody’s garden at the moment. It’s a mess and my pictures of it will be misleadingly selective for several months.
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love your honesty! ❤ thank you!
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I’m still mulling over “Gardening is an instrument of grace” as a concept. It strikes me as both profound and true, without my being entirely sure what it means.
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for me, it means that i accept my garden in its current state (that it’s worthy of praise in both the best of years/seasons and the restorative years/seasons! ❤
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Lovely Passion Flower, and I always enjoy your begonias, you must have a large collection.. https://thebloominggarden.wordpress.com/2023/11/04/six-on-saturday-november-stars-2/
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I’m slowly building up a fair collection of Begonias. I used to regard them as primarily a bunch of gaudy bedding plants; now I see them as one of the largest, most diverse and most intriguing of plant genera. They seem to be catching on too, I’m seeing more and more of them for sale, mostly tender varieties that I know nothing about.
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Sorry, no post from me this week, some gremlins have got into my laptop! I took my photos but now I can’t open the pictures folder and download them onto my blog. Hopefully my son will sort me out over the phone this weekend and I will be back to normal next Saturday.
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I totally sympathise with your computer problems, that was me a month or so back. Hope your son manages to get it working.
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Our nerines are doing quite well. I thinned them out a bit last spring as they were pushing each other out of the ground. It doesn’t seem to have done them any harm. Interestingly we have a flush of flowers on our brugmansia at the moment – at least seven blooms – we thought they’d given up for winter. They’re outside and a bit neglected!
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Flowers outside on a Brugmansia in November sounds pretty impressive to me, though it’s a thing I’ve never grown. I need to investigate my nerine bulbs, see what state they’re in, try to form an opinion about where I’m going wrong.
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Glad you came through the storm, hopefully there isn’t too much to cut back. I planted some Nerine this Spring, but they didn’t flower this year. They are in the sun, so perhaps next year will be an improvement.
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I am thrilled to see a begonia whose ancestry goes back nearly two centuries. Impressive. Here in the American South, we would like to have some rain but not a storm thank you. Our sympathies to all who sustained damage.
Here are my six for this week. It is still blooming here is you look. By the way, the sweet potato variety is Beauregard.
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Your pittosporum is not alone, a Twitterer also commented on a sudden surge of new growth and shared similar worries. I lost all mine last year and have converted to sarcococca, which I hope will be much hardier. Here’s my link https://n20gardener.com/2023/11/04/six-on-saturday-thank-goodness/ we also escaped the storm.
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I’d be very surprised to lose the Pittosporum in Cornwall but not to see some serious damage.
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Oups! Here is the link to my post: https://noellemace.blogspot.com/2023/11/six-on-saturday-4-november-2023.html
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So the slugs like Passion Flowers, what a shame, would it perhaps be worthwhile keeping it as a glass house plant it looks so attractive with flowers in the autumn? I can vouch for it being a funny year here too, with most of the deciduous plants still in full leaf.
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Here is my post this week: https://noellemace.blogspot.com/2023/11/six-on-saturday-4-november-2023.html
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Bit too rampant for the glasshouse, which is stuffed full already. I think now I know I need to deal with slugs around it, it should be OK outside.
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Thanks for hosting, Jim, as always. A lovely six this week, I especially like the passionflower. My six this week is here: https://mysanctuarygarden.wordpress.com/2023/11/04/six-on-saturday-4-11-23/
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Nice Six this week Jim. My Pittosporum ‘Tom Thumb’ has done the same as yours and is now covered with new green shoots. It’s been a funny year! Oddly, I was walking back from town yesterday admiring all the gardens full of beautiful Nerines! Here is my SoS, https://davidsgardendiary.com/2023/11/04/six-on-saturday-104/
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That Hydrangea is a beauty and the new green foliage against the purple on ‘Nutty’s Leprachaun’ looks really good. I’ve got a few evergreens sporting fresh new growth – it’s been a funny old year https://onemanandhisgardentrowel.wordpress.com/2023/11/04/six-on-saturday-4-november-2023/
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It’s funny that you talk about passionflower and grafting, because it’s precisely on the program for my Six this week, you’ll see! (Actually, it was not necessary to be at the Pointe du Raz /Cap Sizun this week, because there were 210 km/h of wind gusts…) https://fredgardenerblog2.wordpress.com/2023/11/04/six-on-saturday-04-11-23/
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I just don’t want to think about wind gusts like that. I doubt we reached half that and it still made a mess.
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The Passiflora ‘Damsel’s Delight’ is of course quite special. A cheat’s six from me I am afraid https://thistlesandkiwis.org/2023/11/04/six-on-saturday-04-11-23/
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Mine is not posting properly, but this link seems to be reliable for now.
My six are less remarkable than your primrose. I should have taken this week off. I am in Los Angeles now, and was too busy while here to take any interesting pictures. I should have taken more because there is certainly plenty of interesting vegetation here. I should have gotten another passion fruit vine. More cultivars are available here than at home. Is primrose supposed to stop blooming for autumn? They are cool season ‘annuals’ here, so should bloom through winter.
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Primrose is spring flowering here but the odd early flower is not unusual. I don’t seem to be able to comment on your post, just wanted to say nice cats, nice fern; same as the other comments.
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Thank you. I know that I will eventually learn to appreciate the foliar color of the fern, as well as the kitties as they mature and become less hyperactive.
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