Six on Saturday – 16/12/2023

Categories six on saturday, 36 Comments on Six on Saturday – 16/12/2023

It’s been a couple of weeks since we had a frost that pretty much drew a line under the 2023 gardening year. I’ve done a bit of cutting down and tidying but it is still something of a soggy mess out there. I thought I’d seen the last of the autumn flowering Camellias, the open flowers and half open buds turned to mush but I’m pleased to see that there were still buds that survived and there is now quite a bit of flower back on them.

Six things in the garden this Saturday then, the same formula as always. Take pictures of six things in your garden, post them on a blog or social media platform, then put a link to it in the comments down below. The guide is here.

One.
Camellia ‘Show Girl’. I’ve been trying to put together a short video about the Camellia collection at Mount Edgcumbe in December. ‘Show Girl’ gets a good big mention for the simple reason it is pretty much the star turn every December and January. They have three plants, I have just one. Mine is on the boundary bank at the far end of the garden, about as exposed a position as I could have found. Not ideal for a plant with flowers over 5 inches across in mid winter. It is just beginning to flower and is loaded with buds still to come. Here’s a taster.

Two.
Camellia ‘Paradise Belinda’. The Paradise Camellias are a race of Camellia sasanqua varieties developed by Bob Cherry at Paradise Plants in Australia. The nursery continues to trade under new ownership and the name Paradise Nurseries. I don’t know how many of his hybrids made it to the UK, I bought ‘Paradise Belinda’ from a French Nursery that recommended it as the best performer in the series for UK conditions. The problem is that “UK conditions” is about as nebulous a concept as you’d find anywhere. Full sun in south east England is not the same as full shade in western Scotland. Suffice it to say that my plant in my south facing front garden in Cornwall is doing well and is after several years beginning to flower freely. This year the flowers are bigger and brighter than they’ve been before, nearly 3 inches across, bright pink with ruffled petals. I put it in a six on 28th October and I don’t think it has peaked yet, so a great flowering season. For what its worth, on the strength Mt Edgcumbe’s two plants I would say that the almost pure white ‘Paradise Venessa’ gives it a run for its money.

Three.
A very different Camellia is C. transnokoensis. This is a species that according to my Camellia species book comes from the “Taiwan Province of China”. Mmmm. It makes a small, graceful tree, to 7m in the wild, and can be very free flowering. The mix of red tipped flower buds, white flowers and small leaves makes it a very attractive plant. It is probably only reliably hardy in the milder parts of the UK. C. lutchuensis is very similar and regarded as the same by some botanists. My plants of both are now about 4 feet tall and growing quite quickly now that they’re getting established.

Four.
When I see how well the four or five Begonias that are in my propagating case are doing with bottom heat and supplementary lighting it is hard not to look on it as some sort of terrarium. Perfect conditions perhaps for me to get the tiny plantlets on the fronds of Polystichum setiferum ‘Ray Smith’ going. It doesn’t produce them every year and when it does they don’t usually survive the fern fronds dying underneath them before they’re big enough to survive independently. I’ll cut a couple of fronds and lie them on the clay granule floor of the propagator. I left fallen leaves in the crown of the plant and it has gone brown, otherwise the plant still looks good. It’d look even better if the camera lens hadn’t steamed up.

Five.
One of the small pleasures of gardening at this time year is seeing the first stirrings of next year’s performers. It’s astonishing how many things are stirring into growth in the dead of winter, Crocosmias, Primroses, Tulips, Hydrangeas and this one; Asphodelus albus. It’ll be May or June before it flowers but it’s already on the move.

Six.
Another winter preoccupation is trying to make sense of what survives against all expectations (Abutilon, Echeveria) and what gets unexpectedly damaged or killed (Camellia ‘Cleopatra’). I’ve come to the conclusion that there are so many variables at play that it just isn’t possible to understand fully. This pair of Cerinthe plants, growing right beside each other, are a case in point. One badly damaged, the other untouched. A genetic component probably, or one is hard and mean because it’s growing on top of a rock, or perhaps one has a root in some planty ambrosia and has grown soft, or maybe one has a mycorrhizal partner that has fed it some ethylene glycol. Who knows?

I’m pleased to see that Saturdays and Christmas are well apart this year. Two more sixes sees 2023 out. Just one more to get past the shortest day. Dig deep, fellow gardeners.

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Published by Jim Stephens

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

36 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – 16/12/2023”

  2. Pingback: Getting the Tap Root – Barefoot Lily Lady

  3. No pictures from me this week – too busy getting Christmas cookies and cards mailed out. Not done with the cards – two destined for UK and Italy respectively will, as always be New Years cards. Nice to see things still flowering! We have had annoyingly warm weather – no snow, some rain, and soon the temps will go back to normal, but we will have lost our acclimatization. Shortest day is just around the corner and then I can soothe myself with the knowledge that though it will be cold until April, we will have rounded the bend.

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  5. Pingback: Six on Saturday: Forward and Back | Rambling in the Garden

  9. Your pink camellias are so beautiful! I always think of them as winter roses here in Cornwall. As for Cerinthe I have several that have plonked themselves in my gravel path and looking most healthy. And my red daylily has no less than 12 flower spikes! I don’t expect to see any actual flowers open and it probably means it won’t flower in the summer when it should.

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  10. So ready for that shortest day to be over! Beautiful Camellias again. It is always interesting to see what survives but impossible to explain many times. I have a begonia native to ditches in South America I thought surely it would die along with the irrigation system. It didn’t! Still wondering about that. Thanks for hosting and Happy Holidays. https://theshrubqueen.com/2023/12/16/six-on-saturday-holiday-gale-gardening-fun/

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  12. Pingback: Six On Saturday: | n20gardener

  13. I’m not a gardener, but I love your writing about plants. I laughed when I read this part of one sentence: “one is hard and mean because it’s growing on top of a rock, or perhaps one has a root in some planty ambrosia and has grown soft”

    Your sense of humor is unique and delightful.

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  15. Pingback: A Hopeful Six on Saturday: 16 December 2023 – My Tiny Welsh Garden
  18. Pingback: Six on Saturday. 16.12.2023 | Lead up the Garden Path

    1. Being at the end of a cul-de-sac it’s safe to say no walkers linger to admire our front garden, and by the time the garden is open in summer even the spring flowering camellias are just a green backdrop. I must finish off my Mt Edgcumbe video, there’s a great ‘Show Girl’ featured in it.

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    2. My ignorance I’m sure but I can never fathom out how to comment on your posts – so I reply here. Just wanted to say that I liked your lophomyrtus! And also yes to you and Jim , please keep using botanical names. It’s really helpful.

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  20. Your Camellias are the jewel in your garden at this time of the year, they’re holding up well, and long may they continue. Great to see some shoots starting to peek through – that’s always an exciting sight.
    My effort for this week:

    Frost

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  23. ‘Paradise Belinda’ is an odd one. I have never heard of it before. It is quite sharp for a Camellia sasanqua. I have heard of Camellia lutchuensis, because we grew it on the farm. I got the impression that it was rare. Those who wanted it were very pleased to find that we had it available, as if it were not available elsewhere. I have not heard of Camellia transnokoensis though, so the two may be considered to be the same here.
    Anyway, these are my Six:

    Six on Saturday: Lily of the Nile Division

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      1. ‘Paradise’ series. I am unfamiliar with the entire series. We grew many of the old classic cultivars and many of the ‘somewhat’ modern cultivars that Nuccio provided, but avoided some of the trendy sorts that factory growers grew.

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      2. It’s taken several years to get there but ‘Paradise Belinda’ has now taken top spot for the showiest C. sasanqua bloom that I have encountered. I measured it at 9cm across today and it’s bright without being strident. A compact and floriferous bush too. You have growers like Bobby Green in Alabama though, you don’t need to go abroad for good varieties. We don’t have the climate for Camellia breeding programs, especially sasanquas.

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      3. Alabama is abroad. Even Nuccio’s is not exactly close. We used to purchase stock plants from them. I have not been there since the early 1990s though. I suppose I could go there while in Southern California. Brent buys directly from them sometimes. Sasanqua camellias seem to be more popular in Southern California than they are here, although they perform very well in both regions. Nine centimetres seems to be somewhat wide. That is three and a half inches, which is about as wide as some Camellia japonica. That is a lot of that bright color. Of course, we can get away with bright color and flashy flowers within some of the landscapes at work.

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