Six on Saturday – 4/1/2025

Categories six on saturday28 Comments on Six on Saturday – 4/1/2025

Brrr! It’s cold. We had a real frost last night and are due another tonight. I’m very well aware how relative temperature is though, especially around freezing point. There’s a world of difference between +2 and -2, way more than between +18 and +22, whatever the arithmetic says.
In practical terms it means that the above ground parts of anything not hardy are gone. It means that if the required action to keep things alive hasn’t been taken before now, it’s too late. And it means that putting a six on Saturday post together is going to be a struggle. There wasn’t a lot going on when I poked my nose out briefly earlier today. Last week I posted a couple of things which were making new growth, I didn’t even look to see if they’d survived.

One.
I went looking for something looking striking with a coating of frost and the best I could come up with was Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’, which I put in only a couple of weeks ago, but not looking like this.


Two.
I don’t want to be wrapping up loads of plants in the garden in order to get them through the winter. I don’t mind piling a few leaves around things but I’ve too many borderline hardy plants to start giving them all elaborate protection. It also looks a mess. Podochaenium eminens was one that I was prepared to make an exception for, given how well it had done last year. I cut the bottom off a plastic sack, put it over the plant, which I’d cut down to a suitable height, filled it with dry leaves and put another plastic bag upside down on top. And before you ask, no, I don’t own a horse. The adjacent banana is being tested for hardiness.

Three.
Virgin Atlantic flight VIR130C from Tampa to London was never in my garden and provided it stayed above 500 feet was never going to be. Apparently I own the airspace above my patch up to 500 feet. You don’t ever think about things like that until you’re desperate for a six on Saturday item. Too bad a 500ft tree isn’t a thing. Not sure I could have done much if the plane had gone through at 400 feet, but it was well clear at 32,695 feet.


Four.
You just have to make the best of what you’ve got. I was just getting messages from one of my sisters whose wildlife river trip in Belize had been cancelled because of inclement weather (not snow, I’m guessing) so they’d had to go to a howler monkey sanctuary instead. My best is a dead hydrangea.


Five.
This would have been happening in the garden if there hadn’t been a frost last night. It was actually taken last year, by which I mean on Tuesday. I meant to measure it, something like 5 inches across, on the big side for a camellia, never mind a winter flowering variety. It’s ‘Show Girl’, a hybrid between an autumn flowering C. sasanqua and spring flowering C. reticulata. There are loads of buds still to come.


Six.
I sowed seed of Begonia heracleifolia 18 months ago and among the seedlings was one that wasn’t heracleifolia or anything like it. It appears to be a cane type, it’s already over 18 inches tall, but it doesn’t have the pendulous flower racemes that come with typical cane types and it has much small leaves. It’s already flowering quite freely for a young plant so it’s looking like a good’un. I took a couple of snapshots with the phone, they’re not very good but you’ll get the idea. I got the seed from Plant World, who I thought collected their own seed, so it might be worth asking them whether it is from their own plants and what is growing nearby.


It’s -1.7°C outside at 9:30pm Friday; +1.6°C inside the greenhouse with the sensor and a couple of barely adequate tube heaters. A bit of sun took it up to 12.3°C earlier today, 14.4°C yesterday. It’s not exactly gardening weather. I hope my hedgehog is tucked up well.

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Published by Jim Stephens

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

28 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – 4/1/2025”

  1. Interesting about the airspace above your property, and you got a nice shot of the plane. I think cold temperatures and garden zones are interesting–based on what we have planted and the zones we live in, we all have different concerns. I’m in a U.S. garden zone that includes a minimum winter temperature of -28C. This winter, so far, the coldest we’ve been has been around -17C. That is not comfortable, for sure, but somewhat “normal” (for lows) in January. My main concern currently is that the plants don’t have a snow blanket during these cold nights, which is unusual for us in January. Fingers crossed that my plants will be OK, and yours will be, too. Beautiful shots of the Camelias and Begonias! Happy Saturday!

    Beth @ PlantPostings.com

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  4. I love post season hydrangeas. I get tumbleweed dried hydrangea that come from who knows where. The frosty grass is lovely. All about contrast in the winter garden. I am with you on not wanting to do too much to nurture plants through the winter. I think it is the main reason I became attracted to native plants (but the insects is what keeps me going). I love that things just keep going in my flower beds and even the vegetables are getting the hang of reseeding themselves so I can just enjoy with minimal input. We have made it to 2025. Back to work next week!

    https://wisconsingarden.wordpress.com/2025/01/04/january-4-2025-six-on-saturday/

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    1. It would all get on so much better if we humans didn’t keep interfering. As the interfering becomes harder work so I am learning to see the self sufficiency of plants ever more positively. I try to accommodate it where I can get away with it. Ah, work; something of a distant memory, it’s over ten years since I finished. I don’t miss it.

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  5. Pingback: January 4 2025 Six on Saturday – Gardening in the Prairie

    1. I couldn’t log in to comment on your post , some teccy thing about refusing to connect! But I did love the cyclamen, I really must add more here. and brownie points for the bird bath – putting me to shame!

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  8. Pingback: Six On Saturday: Confusion in the garden | n20gardener
  9. Pingback: Six on Saturday: 4 January 2025 – My Tiny Welsh Garden

    1. I wouldn’t claim to have perfected the art of being blind to the bad stuff in the garden, but not for want of trying. I tell myself it’s just normal winter weather, that the plants and garden need the rest, that it could be so much worse, that it’s only a garden, that every death is space for something new. There are always a few positives to focus on, even if they’re only the things that survived when they weren’t expected to.

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  11. All we can do is sit and wait now, I keep thinking of things I should have protected but, as you say, too late now. We are on the edge of the Amber Snow Warning, hopefully it won’t come to much for us, although I do feel for those further North. Is Sue’s greenhouse well protected? You hydrangea shot is great, I know it is unhealthy to compare, but much better than my photo. It is the taking part that matters. Love the begonia. Keep warm http://offtheedgegardening.com/2025/01/04/six-on-saturday-11/

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    1. And how can my neighbours invade my airspace with the fumes from the crap they put on their woodburners? Sue’s greenhouse is essentially unprotected in that like all four of our greenhouses there is just enough electric heating to hopefully keep it above freezing without incurring astronomical electric bills.

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    1. Hopefully if I can keep the banana growing point alive it will come back up again. I’m not expecting the top growth to survive. Silliness blurs into desperation when it comes to finding things for a six in January.

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    1. The banana is Musa sikkimensis ‘Bengal Tiger’, which I have been assured is almost as hardy as basjoo. One way to find out. I put a few leaves around the base, should protect the roots and growing point.

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