We had a 24 hour holiday midweek, joining one of my sisters in a holiday rental place in Porthleven, a place I’d never been to. Tuesday afternoon and evening we saw the sights, imbibed the beer and consumed the local fare, not to mention getting a good measure of the local weather. Wednesday we headed to St Just and the Jackson Foundation gallery, a place I’d never been to. Kurt Jackson that is, local artist and Sue’s hero. I’m a good deal closer to understanding why.
A couple of hours there and we headed off to Cape Cornwall, a place I’d never been to. These places are in the same county, but Cape Cornwall is 64 miles from here and 80-90 minutes drive time. We get down that way only once or twice a year.
None of which has anything to do with Six on Saturday, except that in a way it does. Most of you will be familiar with the format, post six things from your garden on a saturday, put a link to your post in the comments below. More info should you need it is in the participants guide. Onwards.
One.
What good art will do is to change the way you look at things. Kurt Jackson has produced books to accompany each of the exhibitions that have been held at the gallery, all described in detail on the website. One of the most recent, up until February 24th this year, was one about the Fowey River, which runs very close to us and with which I am pretty familiar. Many of the pictures in the exhibition were of places that I have myself tried to capture in photographs, almost always far less successfully than he has with paint.
One.
Suffice it to say, I went round the garden with my camera looking for six things to photograph and was less concerned with the subject of the picture than the qualities of light and shade, colour and proportion. And I ended up with about 150 photos, most of them awful. This is one of them, it’s Indigofera pendula.
Two.
Ensete ventricosum ‘Maurelii’ has been looking good for a while but hasn’t gone into a six. Its moment has arrived and all I’m showing is part of one leaf, mostly in deep shade but with the bright low autumn sun performing magic.
Three.
Begonia ‘Torsa’ has loved this wet summer and is looking far more impressive than it ever has before. Again all you’re going to get is one leaf. Sorry.
Four.
Holboellia brachyandra is something I’ve only ever photographed when in flower. Today it was bedecked with raindrops and cobwebs.
Five.
By noon it was raining so interesting tricks of the light weren’t going to happen any more. Out the front our Yucca gloriosa ‘Variegata’ is now starting to push up flower spike number 11. It’s earned another SoS appearance which throws up the usual dilemma of how to take its picture without all the neighbour’s clutter in the background. I’ve done my best.
Six.
While I was taking the shot of the Yucca from an upstairs window, I noticed how good the Acer palmatum ‘Sango-kaku’ across the road was looking. OK, it’s not in my garden, but the photo was taken from our house, so it’s almost legit. I’ll give you a close up and the context, unlike the Yucca, which would have been even worse.
That’s my offering for this week. Lots more rain over the weekend so gardening is going to be an indoor affair. I need to get my seed order in. The header photo is the view from Cape Cornwall towards Sennan Cove and Land’s End. The photo’s below are a figment of your imagination, they are fake, they don’t really exist.
garden ruminations 
Yuccas used to be a common sight around where I lived but don’t seem to be as popular today which is unfortunate. Unfortunately I had to leave a ‘Sango-kaku’ at my last garden, I couldn’t resist buying it several years ago when I was attracted to a group of them for sale in the local nursery, the stem colour appeared to be almost luminous. You have some particularly outstanding pictures this week.
Unfortunately I can’t scrape together a decent six from my tiny garden but have a retrospective at https://ricksplantworld.blog
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The yucca flowers are always such a delight. The acer so vibrant to brighten murky days.
https://pigletinportugal.com/2024/10/19/gardening-sos-vegetable-update-in-october/
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Nice photos! the color on the Japanese Maple is spectacular.
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Had to smile at your ‘150 photos’, Jim – it’s hard enough to cut down fro a dozen to 6 (or so),but a good discipline all the same. It’s a great concept for an SoS post and something we should perhaps all try at least once. thanks for all of today’s intriguing shots (and the other 144…)
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The Begonia leaf photo is beautiful Jim. And those last two photos that aren’t there are gorgeous too. I am intrigued by the uniform shape of that Acer, and wonder if they can be pruned like that. Never seen that before! I am joining in today. Many thanks for hosting. https://wordsandherbs.wordpress.com/2024/10/19/six-on-saturday-autumn-colour/
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The color of the banana leaf is so rich, makes me crave a brownie. The Yucca is delightful, even with the sudden rain.
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Love that shot of the banana leaf!! Great colours and shadows. Sounds like you had a good, inspiring break. There are tons of cobwebs bedecking everything around here. They were especially visible with the fog yesterday. It’s those long linking web-lines at head level that I tend to walk into 🙂
Here are my six: https://wp.me/pM8Y1-9eE
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Lovely photography and interesting travelogue! The Yucca is very impressive. Always nice when neighbours plant pretty things that everyone can enjoy… were the final two photos AI generated then?
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Great job of capturing interesting shapes and colors with an eye to the quality of light. Our days get shorter, so if I manage to get out an take a few and it is not pitch black, I need to be satisfied. Fall color is near peak now and it should be sunny today, so I may find some nice images for next week on that theme.
Here are my sixish – had to post everything worth posting as next week I anticipate the garden to be mostly done. Maybe the chard and kale manage to hang on a bit longer.
https://wisconsingarden.wordpress.com/2024/10/19/october-19-2024-six-on-saturday/
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I enjoyed the photos very much. Good job capturing the beautiful ways that the autumn light enhances the leaves and flowers. From here on the other side of the pond, Cornwall is very enchanting. https://mensgardenvestavia.wordpress.com/2024/10/18/october-hunter-moon-18-oct-2024/
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You probably know that I am a fan of arty floral shots! I love these! Funny isn’t it that so much of Cornwall gets unexplored once you are settled in a place. We rarely venture further than the Fal and even Cape Cornwall hasn’t been viewed for a few years. Porthleven is our Padstow I guess or more likely is St Ives, but that’s so busy even we don’t go there. I shall pop over to view the gallery. I’m sure I must have seen his work as the name is very familiar.
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So much to take in, and like many others Kurt Jackson’s web pages will be visited! Isn’t it good to get out and see new things. Love the photos. Even the fakes. (?) Here’s my six where small things have re-motivated me. https://n20gardener.com/2024/10/19/six-on-saturday-inspired-again/
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We are also big fans of Kurt Jackson, we went to an exhibition of his in Exeter and were wowed by his paintings. He is on the list if we win the lottery! Love these photos, you have really used the light well. Here are mine, have a good week. https://offtheedgegardening.com/2024/10/19/six-on-saturday-disappointment-2/
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Must look Kurt Jackson up. Your Indigofera photo gets first prize from me. It’s a plant I admire each time you show it, so delicate.
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I tried, in one of my photos this week, to capture how the morning light was falling on one of my plants and didn’t really succeed but Kurt Jackson does seem to manage that effect in paint, doesn’t he?
My favourite of your shots are the 2 which don’t exist . . . .
Here’s my six this week: https://mysanctuarygarden.wordpress.com/2024/10/19/six-on-saturday-19-10-2024/
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I’ve been working my way through Jackson’s paintings in the Exhibitions section of his website and trying to work out what it is possible to carry over from painting to photography. I’m starting to think that it’s not a lot. With photography you are restricted to recording what is there and even that is constrained by the capabilities of the camera in respect of depth of field, dynamic range and so on. Artists have much more freedom.
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Art, travel, gardening all on SOS, you know how to spoil me Jim. Love the ways of viewing the garden, that is what I do with my eyes and I think I shall try to learn from you as your pictures are superb. My Six this week: https://noellemace.blogspot.com/2024/10/from-my-garden-six-on-saturday-19.html
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I’m back to not being able to comment on your posts! But I did like the allium thunbergii and the good advice to give precious plants the space to be seen.
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I love what you did with this post. My favorite is the cobwebs in tracery, and shot at an angle. Nicely done.
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Gee, that is impressive color for ‘Sango-Kaku’ Japanese maple. I am none too keen on Japanese maple anyway, and although I like the red twigs of ‘Sango-Kaku’, I dislike how the foliage gets shabby as it yellows. Ultimately it is more brown than yellow. Do you find that, for those who do not mind depriving Japanese maple of its form (which is one of its primary attributes for which it is grown), it is a good candidate for pollarding? As much as I like the red twigs, and as much as I suspect pollarding would improve the foliar quality, I just could not bring myself to pollard a Japanese maple. (Gee, I got carried away again!) Anyway, these are my six.
https://tonytomeo.com/2024/10/19/six-on-saturday-red-flag-warning/
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I’ve never seen Japanese Maple pollarded. The one in the picture was clipped over annually by its owner for years but still grew steadily bigger. A couple of years ago she left a tuft of twigs at the top unpruned because she couldn’t reach them. I went over and offered to take them off with my telescopic pruner but was turned down, so now it looks a bit ridiculous with a bunch of leafless stems sticking 3 feet out of the top.
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It is probably better that you never saw one pollarded. I have seen them with impressively red twigs after very bad hack jobs, and thought that the twigs could be just as colorful in response to proper pollarding. Unfortunately, because pollarding is so vilified here, no one knows how to do it properly, and I certainly would not do it to a Japanese maple, no matter how much I dislike it.
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This post was so full of amusing things that I couldn’t begin to list them. How I love your writing! The photos, though not your usual, were very interesting because of your explanation.
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Loving the arty shots – especially Ensete ventricosum ‘Maurelii’ which to me seems to represent the ironic juxtaposition of something-or-othernus. The remnants of the poppy in one of the photos that doesn’t exist is rather good too. Off to look up Kurt Jackson now… https://onemanandhisgardentrowel.wordpress.com/2024/10/19/six-on-saturday-19-october-2024/
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I see what you mean. The way he captures the light on the sea is very impressive indeed.
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It’s nice of you to introduce us to the ensete Maurellii and it’s these weekends that I plan to lift mine up for its overwintering. Do you do it too?
My method: Dig it up, remove all the leaves and soil, refresh the roots, put it upside down for 3 days, then flat in the garage without water for the whole winter. https://fredgardenerblog2.wordpress.com/2024/10/19/six-on-saturday-19-10-24/
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Last year I put my Ensete in my tunnel, still in the pot it had been in all summer. It died. I’ll try a variation on your method this year.
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