More rain, more wind. Cornwall Garden Society spring flower show at Wadebridge showground. On top of a hill a mile or two from the north Cornwall coast, just the place to sit out a Met Office weather warning for wind. I’m supposed to be there all day on Sunday.
The garden limps along, with everything doing its thing but failing in almost every instance to be even half as good as I’d hoped it would be. Still, it’s April, it’s spring, the clocks have gone forward, we’re all having a lovely time. Six little rays of sunshine are required, sadly my first is anything but.
One.
The long slow agonising death of our Acer palmatum ‘Atropurpureum’ continues. Another large branch was almost completely devoid of new shoots and has now been carefully removed. I did before and after images, which suggest that the visual impact was slight; the reality is not so good. The sideways angle that would have shown how much has gone also had the camera pointing straight at the sun. It’s the branch with the rope tied to it that goes.
Two.
I bought Impatiens balansae at Tregrehan rare plant fair some years back, where Tom Hudson was growing it in a north facing greenhouse. I planted mine in the garden and it has survived under the protection of a layer of leaves but has had to start growing from ground level in spring. It has then started flowering in November. This year the layer of leaves was deeper and we’ve had less frost; new growth is appearing several inches up last year’s stems. Maybe it will start to flower in October this year. Nick Macer is calling this Impatiens aff. apalophylla, having decided balensae was wrong.
Three.
Lysichiton camtschatcensis still comes up where our pond used to be when it was planted. We’ve never tried to get rid of it but it has suffered from acute benign neglect for many years. It isn’t the thug that it’s yellow cousin often is.
Four.
Hardy Plant Society meetings can be expensive when the speaker is a nursery person who has come along with a van load of plants. So it was this Wednesday, with Stella Exley from Harespring Cottage Plants. A Camassia, a Hosta and a Baptisia had to come home with me. This Epimedium was from a speaker last year, Penny from Penny’s Primulas. It’s Epimedium wushanense ‘Sandy Claws’. It’s low growing and the flower spikes are going out sideways, so if it was in the ground they would be face down in the mud. The label says ‘large creamy yellow flowers held above the foliage in spring’. She’s going to be at the show this weekend, perhaps I should have words with her. It’d be better if I stayed away from the sales stands altogether, or left my wallet at home. Fat chance.
Five.
Erythronium ‘White Beauty’ is another plant that flowers too close to the ground to stay clean through endless torrential rain. At least I have mainly succeeded in keeping slug damage to an acceptable level.
Six.
Euonymus fortunei ‘Emerald Gaiety’ is often passed over for something more glamorous but is a very good plant that with all its fresh new foliage is looking very good indeed, totally oblivious to the weather that is playing havoc with flowers of all descriptions and even the new leaves of less robust plants like Hostas.
There you go, another six offerings from a back garden in Cornwall. We’d love to take a peek into your garden, wherever it may be. Call it curiosity, call it nosiness, gardeners everywhere love to know what other gardeners are up to. Six on Saturday is the perfect way to get that snapshot, and if you’re so minded to share your own. Check out the Participants Guide here.
garden ruminations 
So much blooming and growing in your garden–lovely. The Erythronium and ALL the plants look healthy and lush. I hope to join in the meme more often in the months ahead as my Northern U.S. garden wakes up.
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I don’t want to sound like I’m crowing at all, but we’ve been blessed with some spells of dry weather here! Though as I type I can hear rain drumming on the roof and I can hear the road outside is very wet. Crossing my fingers for better weather for everyone soon. Here’s my six for this week: https://notesfromtheundergardener.wordpress.com/2024/04/06/six-on-saturday-6th-april-2024/
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Oh that epimedium is pretty – nost sure if I cut off the flowering stems of my bog-stanndard yellow one along with the foliage… 😉 What a shame about your acer… Thank for hosting today – my contribitions are here: https://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com/2024/04/06/six-on-saturday-little-beauties-and-other-things-mostly-beautiful/
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I like the dark stems of the Impatiens. I must not succumb! Hope the storm doesn’t wreak too much havoc.https://thequiltinggardener.wordpress.com/2024/04/06/six-on-saturday-06-05-2024/
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I feel badly for your Acer but that Erythronium is lovely. This is that wonderful time of year when I have more than enough choices for my six: https://stoneyknob.wordpress.com/2024/04/06/six-on-saturday-love-is-in-the-air/
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I’m sorry to hear about your Acer’s slow demise. Always a hard thing to watch and hope spring eternal. I hope it puts out some new growth to replace what you lost. I love the photo of the Epimedium. That is a lovely variety. Only one patch of mine has started to bloom, and I need to cut back its old, still red leaves to let the new growth shine. Photo taken but not used… I hope your weather improves soon.
Here are my six for the week, lots of flowering trees and a few emerging ferns: https://woodlandgnome.wordpress.com/2024/04/06/six-on-saturday-surprise/
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That Epimedium is fantastic! I hate to see you lose that Acer, they are so beautiful. My condolences. https://theshrubqueen.com/2024/04/06/six-on-saturday-cardinals-and-roses/
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Sad to see your Acer tree! 🌳 I hope it rallys. Pretty Epimedium flowers, testament to why you should buy from plant stalls!
My Six are here –
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Gosh Jim, I don’t envy you at the show. I would love to visit it, but not in this weather. I have been to one when it was held at Boconnoc, but that was before we lived here so I didn’t buy anything. Surely this weather has to change?
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Sorry to hear about the Acer. Dismembering our faithful trees is miserable. Here in the American South, the dogwood, Cornus florida has slowly been disappearing. Our little suburb, like many other towns holds an annual Dogwood Festival. Those fetes will have to be reconfigured.
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The Lysichiton is lovely. Sorry to hear about the Acer. I recently discovered that a fairly large hickory close to our driveway is deteriorating. Several large limbs have died back, and I can see woodpecker holes in soft, rotten wood in the trunk. It is leaning away from the driveway (but towards deer fence), so I’m trying to decide whether to let it go naturally or pay for removal.
My six this week: Four bulbs and two reptiles.
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At least our Acer is a small and fairly easily managed problem. I hope I’m not around when our one big oak tree needs dealing with.
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White Beauty is very nice, even if it blooms low and gets splashback! Nice to see green growth and flowering of any sort from my standpoint. Here in Wisconsin we are in a holding pattern, but my bare root natives have arrived and should go in today once I muster the energy. I feel we are turning a corner and things will start to grow with abandon soon.
https://wisconsingarden.wordpress.com/2024//06/april-6-2024-six-on-saturday/
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Good luck for the show tomorrow, I hope you don’t get blown away! After a few months away from the blog, I’ve finally managed to post another garden update. I’m enjoying cherry blossom and occasional blue skies 🙂
https://doingtheplan.com/2024/04/06/six-on-saturday-blue-skies-and-buttercups-in-april/
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Buying new plants is a good treat, don’t be so hard on yourself.
Here’s my six
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A diverse collection from you as usual, so many delights. Is the Acer suffering from old age or is it honey fungus – do I remember rightly that you also have this dreaded interloper? I have gone full on tulips this week but there is a bonus photo at the end, Jim, if you have any time this busy weekend, could it be a camellia seedling? Here’s my link, slug damage moaned about but tulips celebrated! https://n20gardener.com/2024/04/06/six-on-saturday-slugastrous/
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Good luck for tomorrow. Here’s my six from low-lying Surrey http://lifeonalondonplot.com/2024/04/06/six-on-saturday-06-04-2024/
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There are many of us in the same boat at HPS Meetings, but I feel that when a speaker has given a good talk, and brought special plants that they themselves have grown, it is as if one is a spring lamb being fed sustenance, one cannot resist. Lovely plants there. Her are my six: https://noellemace.blogspot.com/2024/04/six-on-saturday-triumphs-and.html
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Such a shame about the acer. I don’t envy you being in a tent this weekend, no matter how big it is! It would have been rude not to buy any plants at the HPS talk when someone has made the effort to bring them:-)
My six this week is here: https://mysanctuarygarden.wordpress.com/2024/04/06/six-on-saturday-06-04-24/
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Your rationale for buying plants you don’t need chimes perfectly with mine. The show, mostly, is in a huge shed, so it should be OK.
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It’s always sad when a plant is ailing, but when it’s a tree, it feels more like a catastrophe. I hope it manages to give you a few more good years. I had to smile at the Epimedium’s description of ‘large creamy yellow flowers held above the foliage in spring’. Weighed down by the weather perhaps? I hope the storm doesn’t affect the Garden Show. Here is mine for this stormy April weekend:
https://notesfrommygarden.co.uk/2024/04/06/the-weird-and-the-wonderful/
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I imagine the main concern of the show organisers will be that visitors will stay away. As ever, the quality of stuff on display by both exhibitors and tradespeople was fabulous; you just have to wonder how they do it.
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Hope you survive the storm when in Wadebridge, when is it all going to end, very difficult to stay positive! It seems our Erythroniums are opening at the same time, such lovely little treasures! Nice to see your Euonymus getting the praise it deserves, I have a few and wouldn’t be without them.
My six are here…………………….https://www.leadupthegardenpath.com/
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Glad to get support for the Euonymus, a garden needs plants of that ilk, even if its only as background, or windbreak, or to sacrifice when the choice thing alongside needs more space.
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It is relentless, isn’t it, not good for us or the garden. I don’t envy you being in a tent later, however big, fingers crossed for that! Snap with White Beauty, great minds and all that. Here are mine https://offtheedgegardening.com/2024/04/06/six-on-saturday-stormy/
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The CGS show is mostly in a huge shed on the Wadebridge showground. There are a few brave traders outside, though all the plant sellers are inside. I’m doing a talk in a tent outside the shed tomorrow morning, could be interesting.
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how old was this acer palmatum? I have the same one at home and it actually worries me too. I have a few dead branches that I cut every winter and it seems to regenerate a little, but it is not eternal… about the Lysichiton, I thought it must have its feet in water? I hesitated to add one… I could plant one nearby and not potted in the pond https://fredgardenerblog2.wordpress.com/2024/04/06/six-on-saturday-06-04-24/
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The Acer is the oldest plant in our garden, the only one that was planted before we came, just. That would make it around 40 years old. The Lysichiton is in very wet ground, though it will dry out later in the summer (hopefully), by which time the Lysichiton will have died down.
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The Erythronium ‘White Beauty’ is lovely. A very very brief SoS from Wellington today. https://thistlesandkiwis.org/2024/04/06/six-on-saturday-06-04-24/
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That’s good news regarding the Impatiens balansae. I hope you survive the elements at Wadebridge. It’s been a rubbish spring weatherwise so far https://onemanandhisgardentrowel.wordpress.com/2024/04/06/six-on-saturday-6-april-2024/
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I’m scheduled to do a talk at the show tomorrow morning, on showing camellias. The venue is a big teepee outside the main venue, wide open to the wind. The question is whether anyone will hear me over the wind.
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Lysichiton americanus is native to the Pacific Northwest. I saw it blooming on the edges of Highway 5 in Oregon yesterday (well, the day before yesterday now). I wanted to bring some back. I was not aware that it is a thug. It makes sense though, since other arums are. Euonymus fortunei is a surprise in your garden of uncommon species. I got a few uncommon species in my garden, but only as gifts from others, such as a few of my Six for this Saturday:
https://tonytomeo.com/2024/04/06/six-on-saturday-double-whammy/
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Lysichiton americanus probably isn’t a problem in its native environment; here it can be aggressively invasive if the conditions are right, and it’s on our lists of invasive species that are banned from sale.
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Within its natural ecosystems, it likely competes with other species that are comparably vigorous. If I ever found it in the forest outside of the landscapes, I would actually be pleased with it. However, I would prefer it to be in the forests than in refined landscapes where we grow exotic species that may not be so competitive. I get the impression that it prefers riparian ecosystems, so, although native here, it is likely limited to situations that do not get too dry during the long summers. It is supposedly popular among Sasquatch.
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