Six on Saturday – 21/12/2024

Categories six on saturday26 Comments on Six on Saturday – 21/12/2024

I’ve been fixing the fence that blew down in the wind. I’m getting there but it’s still not finished. One more day should see it done. There isn’t a lot happening at this time of year, the transition from one year to the next seems to play out at a snails pace. Just about everything from the 2024 season is finished and there are stirrings from the early players in the 2025 season. Primroses are starting to make leafy growth and have put out a few flowers, some early tulips are putting up leaves. I put down my double handled shovel and wandered around with my camera looking for inspiration and found just about enough to cobble a six together. Flowers are in very short supply.

One.
Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’ is one of those unchanging plants that gets overlooked because there is no one time of the year when it stands out. I have it in a pot, which means it can be moved in front of Hakonechloa macra ‘Albostriata’.


Two
Cyclamen hederifolium seems to flower earlier every year, meaning it’s all over earlier too. The flowers seem to come while much of the main summer display is in full swing, so they get lost in amongst bigger, brasher plants. Then everything else gives up and for two or three months the cyclamen foliage gets a chance to shine without being outdone by all around.

Three.
It wouldn’t be a winter post from me if it didn’t have a camellia in it. The first couple of blooms on Camellia ‘Minato-no-akebono’ are now out. A beautifully scented lutchuensis hybrid which is most welcome in the dead of winter.


Four.
Carex comans ‘Frosted Curls’ has been self sowing for so long that it probably has drifted away from what ‘Frosted Curls’ should be. Or maybe not. I treat 9 out of ten as weeds and pull them up, leaving just a few that aren’t making a nuisance of themselves.

Five.
It comes in useful when you want something that will survive in a pot without regular watering.


Six.
This Azalea, the name of which might be ‘Amoena’, often starts to flower in autumn or winter. Every little splash of colour is much appreciated on the shortest day, especially when strong winds and rain are forecast for all of the daylight hours.

I could end up finishing my fence in the rain, if only to get it done before the next big blow on Sunday. Is it any nicer where you are? Do you have an abundance of blossoms to challenge the gloom? If you do, we’d sure like to hear from you. As ever, post pictures of six things in your garden now and put a link to the post in the comments below. The participants guide is available to help you should you need it.

Have a really happy Christmas, there’s still another Saturday before New Year so I’ll save that for 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.

26 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – 21/12/2024”

  2. Happy Solstice! And I wish you a lovely Christmas time.

    I have a fence which is swaying alarmingly, trouble is it is between me and the farmyard and I can’t get to the other side as it is overgrown with brambles and nettles and wild clematis. And goodness knows how much discarded rubbish. I hope yours withstands this weekend’s blustery weather, it hasn’t been a pleasant day here at all.

    Nice to see the camellia and azalea. I bought an azalea at the end of last year and it is in the ground now, I hope to see it flower in the spring!

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  3. Jim, that is quite a lovely collage of Cyclamen leaves. What a great poster that would make! You have quite a bit of interest still, and I love your Camellia blossom opening. I hope you get the better weather you need for your fence repairs. We still have a Camellia or two blooming, and lots of swelling buds. The deer have exfoliated the little one I planted out last December yet again, but I have high hopes for its recovery. Here are my six for the week: https://woodlandgnome.wordpress.com/2024/12/21/six-on-saturday-solstice-blessings/ Merry Christmas to you and yours!

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  8. Love the Camellia! Also the cyclamen leaves. I misread the azalea name as “amoeba” and though it a strange name for a flower before re-reading it. You still have color – my garden has moved to almost black and white! My colleagues at work recently asked be if I had been to the Birge Greenhouse (Botany Department) on campus and recommended it to me, so in January I will make a pilgrimage to that greenhouse and see what they have growing. Maybe I can add color to my posts in January! I had planned to take a quick visit to Centennial Garden, but alas, a lab called me while I was out and about and we went to help them with their waste issue instead. Darn work getting in the way of my plant viewing! Well, here are my fewer than six! Enjoy!

    https://wisconsingarden.wordpress.com/2024/12/21/december-21-2024-solstice-on-saturday/

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    1. The arrow leaved cyclamen are the ones you sent me seed of some years back. They seem just as robust in the garden as all the others, though they’re still not flowering a lot. I should perhaps move some of them to somewhere sunnier.

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      1. Trying different places I find is a good idea. I have some lovely white flowering C hederifolium which I really ought to move to positions where they are better seen. I think if I were starting again in the garden I would plan the coum in and around the deciduous plants as they can be easily seen in the winter and the hederifolium given spaces by the paths. The trouble is I also have snowdrops and wouldn’t want to plant over them, so it looks as if the time for moving them will be some time before the foliage of the snowdrops dies down.

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    1. They were all grown from seed but Cyclamen seem to get cultivar names for seed raised strains, being very tricky to propagate vegetatively. Most are pink flowered, some are really deep pink but not to my mind quite red. I have a few white ones which are pretty robust and free flowering most years so I’ve sown seed of them often enough but not many of the young ones are flowering yet. And yes, I grow C. coum, and C. repandum, a white form of which I have a few tiny seedlings of. I should really get my cyclamen seedlings under cover, they’re out in this interminable rain.

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      1. All of those cyclamen are rare here. (Cyclamen persicum was formerly a respectable perennial which I enjoyed growing when I was a kid, but it became so annoyingly common that I am not so keen on it anymore. I will likely get pictures of some next week.) Cyclamen hederifolium somehow naturalized within a small area in the neighborhood here. I have no idea where the originals came from, since it is so rare. I really want to relocate some into my own garden, but am also hesitant to introduce them into a portion of the forest where they are not naturalized. (If something that rare can naturalize so easily, what would it do if it were not so rare?) I may just grow them at work, near where they are already naturalized. I can select some that bloom white for relocation, but I find that pink bloom is just as appealing. So far, I have not noticed any that are deep pink. I am not so impressed with the simpler foliage of Cyclamen coum, although I suspect that it would be as happy here.

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