Six on Saturday – 30/11/2024

Categories six on saturday42 Comments on Six on Saturday – 30/11/2024

I’ve had a horticulturally interesting week which included an out of season visit to Trewithen Garden to look at their autumn flowering camellias and a day getting a very large piece of fallen tree off a garage roof. So much for retirement. The latter is threatening to draw me into the complexities of Tree Preservation orders and what to do with a couple of dozen 60-70 foot trees, a mix of Douglas Fir, Lawson cypress, Sitka Spruce and Cryptomeria that were foolishly and inappropriately planted just within the boundary of an urban margin property which had no close neighbours at the time, but now does. The property is covered by a blanket TPO so that all tree work requires planning consent and at some point in the past the trees were topped at about 25 feet, have regrown but are structurally unsound, to say the least. At least the bit that fell only hit a garage, not a house or a person.

OK, enough ranting. This is Six on Saturday, not some ranters soapbox. Post pictures of six things in your garden (or a garden, but preferably your garden), add some notes and put a link in my comments section below. Here’s the link to a participants guide, should you need it.

One.
Begonia ‘Torsa’. I included a hardy begonia last week and here’s another. ‘Torsa’ is a hybrid between B. grandis and an unknown species. It is like B. grandis on steroids, lots of steroids. It comes up late, produces a clump of massive leaves then puts up stems around 60cm tall with pink flowers atop them. That’s around September/October. In November the leaves start to yellow and the whole thing falls apart at the joints. By then just about every leaf axil has an axillary bud or two which have swollen to large pea size and which also detach themselves, fall to the ground and get lost among the leaf litter to emerge as new plants next May or thereabouts. Unless they get collected up and planted like miniature bulbs. I’ve so far gathered well over 200.


Two.
Camellia air layer. I started to write this up as a short post on my camellia blog but I’ll include it here too. Camellias are not the easiest of things to propagate without pro level technology, so air layering to get a few new plants going is appealing. It is made easier still by the use of plastic air layering balls that you can buy online. I put this one onto Camellia x williamsii ‘Charles Colbert’ on 24th March last year and cut it off yesterday, so it’s taken two full seasons to root properly, but I now have a potted up baby plant that hopefully will grow away in the spring.


Three.
While on the subject of Camellias, I have another starting to flower now. It’s Camellia sasanqua ‘Paradise Belinda’, with 8cm semi-double bright pink flowers. In Cornwall it wants full sun to perform best; in warmer climates light shade would suit it better.


Four.
My Musa sikkimensis ‘Bengal Tiger’ currently looks like this, a bit battered by wind and rain but untouched by the slight frosts we’ve had so far. I’m going to leave it out but plan to bag up and dry out enough leaves to pile over it for protection in cold spells during the winter. I’m reasonably confident it will survive and grow again next year.


Five.
Beside the banana is a plant of Podochaenium eminens, the giant tree daisy. I’m a lot less confident of keeping this alive but but bringing it inside would be even less practical than for the banana and it’s going to have to take its chances. Very late in the season it sprout short side shoots low down on its stem and I am building up to taking a couple as cuttings, albeit with very little confidence that they will root and survive. Like the banana I will protect the plant in the ground with leaves and hope for the best.


Six.
I put Fuchsia ‘Shuna Lyndsay’ into a six at the end of October and it is still flowering. Also flowering, and looking pretty much identical, is one with a label saying Fuchsia denticulata. The book says ‘Shuna Lyndsay’ is best described as a dwarf denticulata but our two are much the same size. I’m going to try to get both through the winter without being cut back, in hopes that they will start flowering earlier than November next year.

Fuchsia denticulata?
Fuchsia ‘Shuna Lyndsay’?

Right, all I need is a header picture and I’m done. Might have to be Camellia ‘Navajo’ again; it’s raining, I’m not going outside to photograph anything else now.

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Published by Jim Stephens

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

42 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – 30/11/2024”

  2. When I had to remove a tree which had a TPO on it because it was unsafe, I found our local tree officer at the council to be very pragmatic and helpful – fingers crossed yours is the same.

    Belinda is beautiful, a gorgeous splash of colour at this normally grey time of year.

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    1. The council here seem to go for minimum involvement, wanting a report from an external consultant, on which they base their decision, but getting directly involved. Since the owner of the tree must pay the consultant, it must save the council quite a bit of money.

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    1. I’ve been told that ‘Bengal Tiger’ is almost as hardy as Musa basjoo. I’ll give it some protection but don’t plan anything very elaborate. I won’t open out the Camellia rootball, hopefully I’ve removed the encircling roots and it will grow away normally.

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  5. Pingback: Six on Saturday – Out of time | Frogend dweller's Blog

  6. Jim, So sorry to hear about those unsound trees. From your comments, I’m wondering whether perhaps a previous resident planted them in unsuitable spots. Losing a limb on a structure, even a garage is a bit of an expensive trauma and it sounds like you may have more tree surgery or removal in your future to deal with the others. You’ve inspired me to try collecting the little buds/bulbils from our B. grandis in future to give them a better chance at growing. I have fair luck with Camellia seeds, but none have grown on to flowering size yet. I have used the little air layering tools you have on our fig tree with fair results, and am interested to see that you left yours in place for more than a year. I’m sure that greater patience will improve my luck with them. We had our first frost early this morning, and I’m happy to say it was light and did little harm. But we have a cold stretch coming that will finish the job, I’m sure. Here are my six for the week: https://woodlandgnome.wordpress.com/2024/11/30/six-on-saturday-transitions/

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  7. Pingback: Six on Saturday: Transitions – Our Forest Garden

      1. They are considered hurricane bait here. Illegal to plant in some places. I was in Tampa where the hurricane hit last week and met with a guy who had two norfolk pines leaning on his two story house – $7,000 to have them craned off of his house.

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  9. Crikey, all those trees in one marginally urban garden? What are the current owner’s views I wonder? I thought at first you had mason bee cocoons in your first photo, until I read the text! I am thinking I might add a camellia to the bed belwo where the holly was, but will try and leave a decision until I can see what a difference the tree felling has made to light and shade – I might pick your brains then. Also a hardy fuchsia, so ditto! https://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com/2024/11/30/six-on-saturday-another-mixed-bag-but-quite-a-lot-of-foliage/

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    1. Essentially, the current owner’s view was that being 82 the trees would see her out and be someone else’s problem. I’m happy to have what’s left of my brain picked on the subject of Camellias, not quite so keen on Fuchsias but the nursery I worked on had 400 + varieties and Sue grew them all, so I know a bit.

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  10. Pingback: Six on Saturday: Another Mixed Bag, But Quite a Lot of Foliage | Rambling in the Garden

  11. Belinda is an elegant lady isn’t she? I also like the dainty fuchsias. I toy with the idea of a hanging one for the hummingbirds, but it will either have to come in in autumn or be treated as an annual. Sorry about the trees! I bought my house with two big ash trees, maybe 50ish years old. We are having problems with Emerald Ash Borer, which effectively takes out a tree in about five years. One can treat, but this is expensive and forever, so I paid an obscene about to have the trees removed. I did feel a little bad about taking down mature trees, but the larger had already dropped a branch on my power line. I added eight arbor vitae and the dwarf weeping cherry and left the crab apple which probably should go as well. I may think about adding something similar to the southeast corner of the yard so we still have something when the existing tree, which is partly hollow, dies or falls. The ash were too close to the house anyway. I am sharing second string photos as I seem to have run out of things in my garden. Even the kale and calendula are now frostbitten.

    https://wisconsingarden.wordpress.com/2024/11/30/november-30-2024-six-on-saturday/

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    1. We’re well on the way to having most ash trees wiped out by ash dieback, Hymenoscyphus fraxineus. It’s very sad to see so many dead and dying trees around the countryside. Trees near buildings are always contentious but so many urban areas are treeless and sterile, they make such a difference to the ambience of an area. Trees are fine, so long as they’re next to someone else’s house, or shading someone else’s garden.

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  12. Pingback: November 30, 2024 Six on Saturday – Gardening in the Prairie
  13. Pingback: Six on Saturday. After the Frost. | The Blooming Garden

    1. I did read about cuttings being used to propagate camellias in one 19th century account, using pure sand and bottom heat, but mostly they were inarch grafted onto seedlings. They were growing them in stove houses where some varieties were setting seed, usually ‘Anemoniflora’, and places like Heligan have several plants that look like they are now just rootstock, the scion variety long gone.

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  15. Oh, mine are just the opposite. While you experienced a horticulturally interesting week, I was involved with a commitment that precluded any horticultural involvement for two weeks. I probably should have refrained from Six on Saturday for this week. Well, I got these six pictures of someone else’s cut flowers (below). I happen to be an arborist, so in the past, had been involved with some rather silly arboricultural issues. I could write about it within my Horridculture meme. Even without explanation, Douglas fir and Sitka spruce already sound like a problem. Why are the even available there?! Your banana tree looks impressive. I mean, even in the famously mild climate here, mine are expressing displeasure with the increasingly cool weather. https://tonytomeo.com/2024/11/30/six-on-saturday-white-saturday/

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    1. Both Sitka and Douglas are grown extensively in forestry plantations here and are available to people to plant in unsuitable places because foolish people are happy to spend money doing foolish things, or in this case, primarily vindictive things.

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  18. I do like to listen to a rant and I feel it is well justified. The Bengal Tiger is just looking amazingly well considering the storm. The leaves make perfect ‘disposable’ plates or small platters if cut into squares and being that beautiful green colour set off things like starters beautifully. Here are my six this week: Fuchsia ‘Shuna Lyndsay’ 

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  24. Impressive these begonia torsa bulbils! My B grandis produces a lot of them but there, it’s even more….
    I should buy myself plastic molds like you used for air layering. I still use the old plastic bag method…. Nevertheless bravo, the result is there.
    Is the Podochaenium eminens big? Can’t you surround them with a double fleece or a duvet ? My link : https://fredgardenerblog2.wordpress.com/2024/11/30/six-on-saturday-30-11-24/

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    1. The Podochaenium got to about 2m but has gone mouldy and partly collapsed so is about half that. I think if I wrap it for any length of time it will rot. So the question probably is, will it shoot from below ground?

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      1. Fingers crossed… I read that frost will damage the foliage, but the plant can take at least several degrees of frost (-3°C), with new growth emerging from the base. A thick mulch is needed !

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