Six on Saturday – 7/9/2024

Categories six on saturday41 Comments on Six on Saturday – 7/9/2024

September and I did a fairly quick whizz round the garden snapping away, thinking it was all in a bit of a downward spiral and now I look through the pictures I have at least 15 things I could put in. Opening the garden to visitors would entail a huge amount of hacking stuff back from the paths but I should try to do another video. There never seems to be time. These are not bad problems to have, is what I tell myself.

Six on Saturday is a simple meme whereby a whole bunch of us share six things that are happening in our gardens each week. Post photos of six things in a blog or somewhere findable, then put a link to that location in the comments below. Join us, the more the merrier.

One.
There are a couple of things that are easy choices for inclusion and none more so than Hedychium ‘Tara’. I’ve always been aware that adequate moisture in their summer growing season is essential for getting the best of the hardy gingers and this summer has suited them to perfection. ‘Tara’ is half as high again as she’s ever been before, the tallest stem being 1.8m. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again; I can’t think of another fully hardy plant as exotic looking as Hedychium ‘Tara’.


Two.
1.8m is a lot of growth in one season for a plant that starts quite late, around June. Saccharum officinarum ‘Rubra’, or whatever it really is, beats it comfortably. This was rooted from a piece of stem a few inches long last autumn, kept on the window-ledge through the winter and plant out in spring. It is now 2.2m tall and a substantial clump. I put one in the ground and another in a pot, the latter is pathetic, it just wasn’t given enough water and would in any case have totally outgrown the pot if it had been. I’ll chop it up for cuttings for next year. It is supposedly tender, so I need to start some new small ones, I’m not lifting the big brute to overwinter under cover. It’s almost impossible to photograph because I can’t get back far enough to take a sensible picture.


Three.
Fuchsia regia serrae was planted against a wooden archway we have over one of the paths. It is now forming a roof to the archway and has put up a thicket of shoots 1-1.5m long, with in most cases a few flowers at the tips. There’s really nowhere else for it to go now so in the spring I’ll cut it all back to the arch.


Four.
There seems to be an unplanned theme emerging of things that have got away from us more than somewhat. Another bit of trellis supports a clematis that came from my parents garden a very long time ago. It may have come as seed or a seedling, I don’t remember, and I don’t really know what it is. I’ve always regarded it as something akin to wild form Clematis viticella and I like its very understated appearance; it’s so understated it would be very easy to miss, but it’s striking out into the Ligustrum lucidum tree above it and is 4-5m tall. It will be interesting to see how far it will go.


Five.
Mangave ‘Pineapple Express’ was the first of its kind that we purchased but was followed by several more; I’ve lost count, it’s 6 or 7 at least. It has been well treated, fed, watered and potted on. Consequently it’s not the sort of hard and mean plant that looks like it would survive outdoors through the winter, or even in the new polytunnel perhaps. On the other hand it has made a lot of growth and will be wanting a big space in somewhere frost free. Dilemma.

Six.
Podochaenium eminens was a thing I picked up at Tregrehan Plant Fair last year and I would almost certainly have passed it over without a second glance except that the person selling it wouldn’t have had it unless it was something interesting. I asked about it and was persuaded to part with my money. When I planted it out earlier this year it was a pretty hungry looking 30cm plant that didn’t look much at all. It’s now 2m tall with leaves 45cm wide. Hopefully it will survive the winter, though I’m not expecting all the top growth to make it, and grow bigger still next year. Paulownia would do much the same without the concerns over hardiness.

Another week down, definitely slipping into autumn now but loads still going on here. Keep it coming I say. See you’se all next week.

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Published by Jim Stephens

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

41 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – 7/9/2024”

  1. Pingback: Six on Saturday – A Plantsman's World
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    1. I shall sleep a little easier when the tunnel has withstood its first gale. It’s more than ready for action though, I have seeds up and lettuce planted. All my potted lilies have been decamped into it from the garden here. The slugs think hiding under the mesh that I’m drying my onions on is a good idea and since I know they’re there, so do I. I set traps for a mouse or vole which has re-opened a hole in the middle of my seed bed. Full on business as usual in fact.

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      1. All that extra space will be invaluable and I am sure you will make full use of it, as you seem to be doing so already – and will soon want a third one! 🤣 Glad you are letting the pests know who is boss! 👍

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  6. Pingback: Six on Saturday: Industry | Rambling in the Garden

  7. There is a real tropical look to your post this week Jim. At No 2 I thought straight away of sugar cane, as this used to grow all around when I was young in Mauritius, but then I thought surely not. Then I read the name which gave a hint to sugar: Saccharum officinarum ‘Rubra‘, and I checked and it is a sugar cane. The edges can be like razors, so that care. They have a lovely flower too, but I am not sure if they will have a long enough growing season. I bet Fred who likes to grow exotics will be wanting to grow this too. Here are my six:

    https://noellemace.blogspot.com/2024/09/from-garden-six-on-saturday-at-start-of.html

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    1. Hummingbirds are only found in the Americas so for all its appearance, Hedychium ‘Tara’, which came from India, would not be pollinated by them in the wild. Which makes me wonder what does pollinate them. They have the look of something with a specialised pollinator of some sort.

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  13. Pingback: September 7, 2024 -Six on Saturday – Gardening in the Prairie
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  18. I wrote my post and then it lost it so I’ll try again.

    Tara deserves a round of applause. My cannas are flowering better than ever before and I wonder if they both like the same conditions. Since I’m no botanist I don’t know where either of them hail from.

    There’s no post from me this week just an apology to everyone who has kind enough to comment on my last post two weeks ago to which I didn’t reply due to the sudden illness of a member of the family. I can confirm for those that asked that the red helenium looks lovely in the photo but is the normal rusty red one in real life. I hope to be back to SOS soon, but I am spending most of my time at the hospital for now.

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  20. That sugarcane is baffling. When I grew mine from pruning scraps from Brent’s garden, it was still rare. Brent did not know what it was, but got it just because it was rare at the time. He is such an idiot. I thought that I identified it as ‘Pele’s Smoke’, but I sort of doubt that it is its identity now. There are more than thirty out there now, and I need to start sending them away, but can not assign a name to them. It is pretty though, so I will continue to grow it. How many Hedychium do you grow? ‘Tara’ looks familiar from last year, but the name does not sound familiar.

    These are my six, with only two species.

    https://tonytomeo.com/2024/09/07/six-on-saturday-madness/

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    1. I cannot find anything that clears up the sugarcane mystery either. I have four Hedychiums now, ‘Assam Orange’, ‘Tara’, ‘Stephen’ and ‘Sorung’. I think they are all forms or hybrids of H. densiflorum, with ‘Assam Orange’ very similar to the straight species.

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      2. Of course! I should have remembered ‘Assam Orange’. Those cultivars seem to be more available there than they are in Southern California, where they can be evergreen. (If evergreen, they need much more grooming, and can actually look shabbier.)

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      3. ‘Assam Orange’ was a selection from material of H. densiflorum growing at Edinburgh Botanic Garden. In the early 1970’s someone decided to trial it outdoors at Wakehurst Place in Sussex in the south of England, which is an offshoot of Kew Gardens, and to their surprise it thrived there. The original collection was by Frank Kingdon-Ward, in Arunachal Pradesh in northern India, in 1938. It pretty much kick started the business of growing Hedychium outside in the UK. Before that I think the only species I’d come across was H. gardenerianum, which is hardy only in the very mildest gardens in SW England and would have been too big and vigorous for most people’s greenhouses.
        Tony Schilling, who was curator at Wakehurst, collected ‘Stephen’ in 1966 in Nepal and ‘Tara’ in 1972, as seed, in Kathmandu. I believe current thinking is that ‘Tara’ is a hybrid between coccineum and gardnerianum. Both are named after his children.
        H. densiflorum ‘Sorung’ was collected by Edward Needham in Eastern Nepal. So all four were originally introduced to the UK and since you would have been able to grow the tender species outside so easily that at least one is regarded as an invasive species, it perhaps isn’t surprising that our forms didn’t make a bit impact in America. They’re all wholly deciduous here too, so don’t have the downside of shabby foliage in winter.

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      4. Someone else just mentioned that to me; that cultivars there are likely unavailable here because so many other cultivars are already more popular here, and that evergreen sorts are preferable. Actually, only a few are popular here, with Hedychium gardnerianum being the most common. I only grow the others because I bring them back from the Los Angeles region. They are evergreen in the Los Angeles region, but deciduous here. Even if they do not die back, I cut them back.

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  21. Lots of great things this week. First the hedychiums which as you will see are also featured in my Six but another variety. (It would be great to swap ‘Tara’ and ‘Assam Orange’ …if you want). Then the very pretty mangave which you said takes up a little space…and finally the Podochaenium eminens and its amazing leaves which look like those of the foxglove tree but without the branches. I can’t wait to see how it will resist the winter….

    Six on Saturday 07-09-24

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  23. It initially I thought I’d comment on the stunning Hedychium ‘Tara’. Then I read about the massive Saccharum officinarum grown from a cutting just last year and thought I’d comment on that instead. And then I got to the Fuchsia covering the arch… An impressive six! shttps://onemanandhisgardentrowel.wordpress.com/2024/09/07/six-on-saturday-7-september-2024/

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