Six on Saturday – 18/11/2023

Categories six on saturday48 Comments on Six on Saturday – 18/11/2023

It’s raining; again or still or both. The weather seems to have been in the same rut since July and looks set to stay in it. I’m slightly surprised that more things haven’t collapsed in a mushy heap on the ground. It hasn’t been really cold, a frost would reduce a lot of the soft late growth to mush overnight.
It does mean there isn’t a lot happening and what is happening isn’t in the main new. A bit of a funny mix then, this week. You know the score, six things in your garden on a Saturday; take pictures, put those pictures somewhere we can all see them, put a link in the comments below so we can find them. Should you need it, check out the participants guide.

One.
A couple of weeks ago our garden club had a Zoom talk from a hedgehog rescue centre based at Newquay. We’ve had hedgehogs in the garden for as long as I can remember, very occasionally we see them, sometimes we hear them, some years one has hibernated in the garden, regularly there are droppings. The speaker said that they had release sites across Cornwall and into Devon, including one in our village, and liked to release into a similar environment to where the rescued hedgehog had come in from. I enquired further about what they required of a release site; they referred me to their website. Having hedgehogs already and not having badgers were big plusses. I applied, was told that subject to getting a nest box set up, we could go on their release site list. The nest box is set up, I dried a bag of leaves in a mesh bag in the greenhouse and put them in the box. We are good to go. It can surely only be a good thing to encourage and support a hedgehog population, they don’t do damage, they don’t eat plants, they do eat some plant pests.

Two.
Turning to indoor plants for a change, I snapped a picture of the cactus on one of our north facing window ledges. Schlumbergera truncata I believe, the Thanksgiving cactus, though since we don’t really do Thanksgiving, I’m not sure what to call them. The picture was rubbish, so I took them outside and took another.

Three.
To Sue’s annoyance, at this time of year there are nearly always a couple of vases, or jugs, or jam jars, stuffed with bits of camellias that I have brought back from Mount Edgcumbe to scrutinise further. Sometimes if I want a good photograph of a variety I will bring open a shoot with a bud set to open and let it open indoors out of the weather. This is an unknown sasanqua variety which I am compiling a detailed photographic record of in the hope that one day I will be able to put a name to it. It may of course be a seedling that has never been named, which would be impossible to prove.

Four.
When I do such pictures I will often focus stack them, in order to get all parts in sharp focus. This morning (Friday) the air was absolutely still, a rare occurrence here, and I was able to take the pictures I wanted outdoors. While I was set up, I put the camera and tripod in the garden proper and took a stacked image of the garden. I thought the image where it is sharp front to back strengthened the feeling of plants crowding in on you. There’s no sense of depth, it’s all in your face.

Five.
I have one or two late blooms on at least three of my hydrangeas. Low light levels seem to mess up their pigment production leading to pale and sometimes pleasingly subtle colour variations. This is ‘You and Me Together’, a double flowered mophead, the new flower and a dark rich red old one.

Six.
Hedychium densiflorum ‘Assam Orange’. I’m trying to keep my monthly video post of the garden going and posted one for November earlier today in the post preceding this one. Knowing that there are some scarily knowledgeable people who just might check in on it, I quite often check my facts before going public with them. So it was with this ginger lily. I have all these books and rarely look at them, I should be ashamed of myself. Turns out Frank Kingdon-Ward collected H. densiflorum at 2000m in Arunachal Pradesh, northeast India, in 1938. It ended up back at Edinburgh Botanics where, in spite of the collection location and climate, it was treated as a tender, tropical subject. In the early 1970’s it was trialled at Wakehurst Place in Sussex, where it proved fully hardy and thrived. It essentially kick started the growing of ginger lilies as garden plants in the UK. My history with it doesn’t go back that far but the plant here is at least thirty years old and has performed well every year, faltering only if it is very dry in its June-July peak growth period. Mid November, it’s starting to collapse and it’s still putting on a show.

Still raining. There’s not going to be a lot of gardening done today. It’ll keep. 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.

48 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – 18/11/2023”

  1. Pingback: Six-on-Saturday: New Beginnings – Grow Write Repeat

  2. Ooh, I’ve been looking into getting a hedgehog house! Do you have any recommendations? We have a big brush pile behind the barn already, but might get it chipped in the spring after everything’s moved out. We used to have a resident hedgie, but it got run over several years back (grrr) and I haven’t seen signs of a new one yet, which makes me sad. Anything to entice a new one.

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    1. I looked at the design on Prickles and Paws Hedgehog rescue then went looking for something similar to buy. Ended up with a Green Feathers Eco Friendly model, but there are quite a few similar things about.

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    1. That would be Herman the Head. Way way back in nursery days we got to choose the range of pots we had for sale, mostly fairly ordinary glazed things from Vietnam or somewhere else in that area. Occasionally they had ornaments like our Easter Island head, which is hollow. We’ve seen very many since but none we’d swap for ours. Echeveria in the top, he’s had that for a couple of years now, had a shaggy mane of Carex before that.

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  6. That ginger lily does amazingly well for you, although from its heritage it is clearly much hardier than what we might expect of ginger lilies in the UK. And the cacti are glorious! I have no idea how you would create a stacked photograph but that first one of your garden looks amazing – such a great effect! Will try and make time to look at some of your videos – I have barely touched my laptop this week so presumably I am busy with lots of stuff other than blogging 😉 Thanks for hosting. https://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com/2023/11/18/six-on-saturday-when-is-an-empty-pot-not-an-empty-pot/

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    1. The late Tony Schilling, of Wakehurst Place, was a great champion of hardy Hedychiums. ‘Tara’ and ‘Stephen’ were both selections of his and both thrived at Wakehurst, along with ‘Assam Orange’. Wakehurst is hardly a climatically favoured garden.

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      1. Yes, I can imagine they would be hardier in some parts of than others – is it prolonged wet that gets to them, do you think? Monty Don used to bring his inside, but he is biting the bullet and overwintering many things outside where they will either sink or swim as our climate gradually changes

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      2. I don’t think prolonged wet troubles them, Cornwall does a lot of prolonged wet. The rhizomes lie on the surface so will get very directly impacted by low temperatures, I imagine there is a minimum below which they just die.

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  8. Your flowering cacti are stunning. Love the photo out in the light, especially. I just brought ours in about a week ago and they are full of buds and blooms. Great fun. But I’m still fixated on Camellias and the turning foliage, here. Would love to have some of your rain. Thank you for your very logical explanation of why Hydrangeas bloom in such odd colors late in the season. They are fascinating, aren’t they? And they dry so well. It has been a busy month and I’ve not kept up with the photography or posting, but here are mine for the week, if a bit late: https://woodlandgnome.wordpress.com/2023/11/18/six-on-saturday-change-in-the-wind/
    Have a terrific week! I hope you get a break from your rain.

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  9. Pingback: Six on Saturday: Change In the Wind – Our Forest Garden

  10. Ah, I didn’t know that badgers would predate hedgehogs and we certainly have very active badgers here, so it might go some way to explain not seeing hedgehogs. I love H. Assam Orange and have several pieces in pots, but having seen what an amazing show your mass of ginger is putting on I am going to definitely see if I can bulk up some in the ground now. Also, what a contrast in hydrangea heads. Hard to believe they are just new and old flowers!
    Here are my six: https://wp.me/pM8Y1-8Xr

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  11. Pingback: Six on Saturday: When is an Empty Pot Not an Empty Pot? | Rambling in the Garden
  12. Pingback: Six on Saturday – Late developers | Frogend dweller's Blog

  13. That camellia is a pretty one! As for hedgehogs I have never seen one here, though surrounded by pasture land I suspect there is no need to raid gardens. My son however had several visiting his garden in Doncaster and I think that’s probably the last time I saw one – in my previous garden back in the 1990s!

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    1. There’s no obvious reason for hedgehogs being in the gardens on our estate, there’s plenty of farmland, railway embankments, hedgerows and so on around. It may be the absence of predators – badgers? I should probably try to find out more about them.

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  14. That’s a good-looking hedgehog house. I don’t have hedgehogs and none of my neighbours have seen any either, but I’d be happy to have one or two come to visit. I hope yours arrive soon.
    The old flower on the hydrangea really appeals to me – I love the dark, rich tones – especially at this time of year.

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  16. Whether Thanksgiving or Christmas, that flowering cactus (Schlumbergera) is magnificent. I have two in the house which have not yet begun to show evidence of buds, so they must be of the Christmas designation. When they do, they will be worthy of a photo.
    Thank you for the Hedychium history. They do well outdoors here in the American South.
    Here are my six for the week.

    Fall Colors Continue 17 Nov 2023

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  18. Pingback: Six on Saturday | 18th November 2023 – Little Blue and White House

    1. I’m pretty sure Treseder’s had ‘Assam Orange’, if you go the mail order route, though when I was at their nursery the other day he said he’d not had time to put much on his website beyond ferns. He has a great range of Hedychiums, just wish I had more room for them.

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  20. Pingback: Six on Saturday: 18 November 2023 – My Tiny Welsh Garden

  21. I like all your photos this week, lovely selection. I’m sure your hedgehog will be very happy in it’s new house, I haven’t seen mine for a while now, I hoped it was already hibernating. One hibernated in my woodland a couple of years ago and I was working there when it decided to wake up, it sounded just like the wild boar that I had seen on TV! My six are here…….https://www.leadupthegardenpath.com/

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  27. Hedgehogs still look scary, even if they are dinky. I suppose that they are not as bad as opossums. Some consider opossums to be beneficial, since they eat mollusks, grubs and baby rats. However, they also eat fruits and some vegetables! I suppose that hedgehogs would be better.
    None of my gingers bloomed this year! The summer weather was so mild. Two bloomed before I brought them here, but not since they arrived. You know, I actually looked for ‘Assam Orange’ while in the Los Angeles region, but did not see it. I certainly do not need any more gingers. I just wanted to see if it is available here.
    Here are my six:

    Six on Saturday: Williamsburg II

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  28. Pingback: Six on Saturday. 18.11.2023 | Lead up the Garden Path

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