Six on Saturday – 18/1/2025

Categories six on saturday, 31 Comments on Six on Saturday – 18/1/2025

It’s been a pretty cold, mainly dull week weatherwise and not a lot has changed out there in the garden. There was very little happening a week ago and there’s very little happening now. My six this week might just have to push at the boundaries a little, or I’m not going to get past three or four.

One.
Camellia transnokoensis is a Camellia species with small white flowers on a fine twiggy, small leaved bush. It’s a little lost in the picture against a background of another Camellia but the only other angle I could get was against a white sky and even worse.


Two.
Camellias have been very much on my mind this week as I was down at Heligan on Thursday running a session with some of the gardening staff, looking at the history of Camellias in cultivation. They have a National Collection of pre 1920 Camellias in the garden. I came across a couple of interesting things while preparing for it. One of the earliest illustrated books produced in the UK about them was Samuel Curtis’ Monograph of the Genus Camellia, from 1819, originals of which sell for tens of thousands of pounds. This being the modern world you can download it for free, or just look at it. https://hdl.huntington.org/digital/collection/p15150coll3/id/8502/rec/1
I was also looking through the European Nursery Catalogue Collection on Internet Archive. Catalogues from 1800. Makes you realise how little is really new.


Three.
I’ve been dragooned into filling the comparatively short speaking slot after our own local garden club AGM in February and I’ve told them I will talk about Begonias. I’m planning to take my now monstrous Begonia carolinaefolia along with me, I doubt any of them will have seen a begonia like it before. I need a publicity picture for the Facebook page, for which I will find something more colourful, I don’t want to be putting people off. I helpfully leant my secateurs against the 20L pot for scale, then less helpfully only got the tip of them in the picture.


Four.
I’ve been clearing beds around the garden one at a time and today was the turn of this one. The before and after image thing would be better if (a) the pictures were in focus and (b) the camera hadn’t moved between pictures one and two. You get the general idea though.


Five.
The last time I mentioned Ozothamnus hookeri was June 2021, lamenting the fact that the plant was outgrowing its location and our attempts to propagate had been failing. The original is long gone but the lone surviving propagule is looking to got going at last. You can at least see it now that the surrounding annuals are all gone.


Six.
I’ve been asked to write a short piece about the village allotment site for the local parish magazine. I’m at one extreme in that I don’t want to see bare soil in winter, I want edible crops, or cover crops, or weeds that I can treat as cover crops or a mulch of shredded vegetation. At the other extreme are the growers who rough dig and leave it for the weather to break down. I have my reasons, no doubt they have theirs. I’m also trying to get as much use from my tunnel in its first season.


You can check the rules for Six on Saturday here, in the participants guide. I may have bent them a bit but I’m blaming the time of year. Six things plant related or six things in the garden, I haven’t read the rules for years. Post your six items on a blog or some such and put a link in my comments section below. Simple.

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Published by Jim Stephens

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

31 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – 18/1/2025”

  1. I found the details of the history of Camelias and the publications fascinating. Those illustrations before the advent of photography are very attractive too.

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  2. I must try out that before & after technique sometime – despite your reservations it served a useful purpose! I was intrigued by the availability of the vintage camellia illustrations – who knew? Well, you did, for one! Sounds as if you are in great demand from many quarters, Jim – no quiet retirement with your feet up for you! My not very interesting six are here: https://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com/2025/01/18/six-on-saturday-cracking-on/

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    1. I was going to mention Biodiversity Heritage Library too, there are several sets of Camellia pictures on there the copyright on which is long expired. Chandler and Booth, Verschaffelt, Berlese, Baumann etc. There’s so much stuff available these days if you can only ever find out that it exists. Terrible time waster though.

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  3. Pingback: Six on Saturday: Cracking On | Rambling in the Garden

  5. I like the dainty white camellia. I saw a camellia during my greenhouse visit, but the open flowers were on their way out and the buds were tight. I have to go back and see how it looks with fresh flowers. Your tunnel looks great! I agree about keeping things growing – of course where I am, that is supposed to be snow, but we have none, and non in sight for now. When I had an allotment in Seattle, we were instructed that we must keep the ground in production or in cover crop year round. They would provide cover crop seed.

    Here are my six, courtesy of the Birge Greenhouses:

    https://wisconsingarden.wordpress.com/2025/01/18/january-18-2024-six-on-saturday/

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      1. Yes, probably that, but at the same time, I think my experiences there led to my habit of growing things in a crowded manner. Fewer weeds to weed. We used buckwheat in summer and I continue to have buckwheat, sometimes chopping it as mulch, but often letting it go because I like the flowers. Also, the leaf cutter bees seem to favor the buckwheat leaves and they are adorable to watch as they cut out little circles to line their nests

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  6. Pingback: January 18, 2024 Six on Saturday – Gardening in the Prairie

    1. I’ve always resisted following up on the adds in the American Begonia Society bulletin; knowing they’d only make me depressed. So what have I just done but look at StevesLeaves.com and the 410 begonias he’s selling. I shouldn’t have done it.

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      1. Thank you. I am sorry if I gave you Begonia depression. You have probably cost me some money! I can get huge pink Canes around here but would like something different to underplant my Lobsterclaw Heliconias…

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  12. Pingback: SoS: January Orchids and Palms – Piglet in Portugal

  13. Totally smitten by the first picture. I’ve never seem camellias with such small flowers. Love it! I’m trying to learn more about soil science. I gave up rough digging some years back but I’m not so good at keeping a cover crop. This year I’ve tried an area with chopped vegetation. Good luck with all the talks, maybe the tip of the secateurs does demonstrate the size of the begonia!

    Finding six for the week really was a challenge but this is what my garden is offering up at the moment https://n20gardener.com/2025/01/18/six-on-saturday-slim-pickings/

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    1. It’s a dainty but classy plant is C. transnokoensis. On soil science can I recommend Dr Christine Jones on YouTube. I’ve struggled to find cover crops that establish well enough when sown after an early crop and that survive the winter without dying back or just dying. Foxgloves aren’t on any cover crop list I’ve ever seen but do the job pretty well.

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  14. Pingback: Six On Saturday: Slim pickings | n20gardener
  15. Pingback: Six on Saturday: 18 January 2025 – My Tiny Welsh Garden

    1. C. transnokoensis has none of the lumpeness of most hybrid camellias but hasn’t been used a great deal for hybridising, unlike the closely related and very similar C. lutchuensis, which has good perfume as well.

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