I was finally paying attention today when the sun reached the point it was running directly down the side of the house, i.e. at a right angle to the front wall. Bang on noon. Any plant close to that line of shadow suddenly finds itself in the full glare of midday sun. If we were on GMT it would mean the house faced directly south but since we’re on British Summer time it presumably faces 195°, or is it 165°? I have a compass somewhere, I could check if I could find it.
Back in the real world, it looks like we might get a little rain this weekend though I’m not expecting much. The garden isn’t suffering yet, to be honest; it’s been an excellent growing year so far and the only minor complaint might be that some things have gone over quickly in unusually warm weather. Once again, I’ve plenty to choose from to include here. Please join in, just post six things happening in your garden in a blog or some such and put a link to the post in my comments below. All is explained fully in the participants guide, not that there’s much explaining to do.
One.
Fence fixing. I have the materials; what I lack is the motivation. The fact that the bed on the other side of the fence is a mass of nettles hasn’t added to my enthusiasm. Will it be something happening in my garden this Saturday…. mmm maybe.
Two.
I should probably not have planted Camellia ‘Nightrider’ in a 1m wide bed with a fence on one side and a path on the other. Knowing it to be a slow grower, it wasn’t going to be a problem for a good many years; the trouble is those years have passed and they weren’t so very many nor were they especially good. Cutting it back is going to be hard but I’m not coming up with better options.
Three.
Talking of problems, here’s another. My bamboo clump has spread slowly outwards over the years and the old canes are long gone. I planted Begonia koelzii in the clearing and for a few years it has been very happy and has done well. However, the bamboo has wised up to the extra water and occasional feed that begonia gets and wants to recolonise the space. In the process it’s drawing too much water from where the begonia is for it to get going. It’s also pushing two big bamboo shoots up through the begonia. Time to deploy a sharp spade and a pair of loppers.
Four.
Leptospermum rupestre is a comparatively dull plant compared to the strongly coloured and double flowered selections of Leptospermum scoparium that many people grow. It is however prostrate, or in the case of my plant growing atop a low wall, pendulous. Its flower display is not really spectacular or long lasting so it hasn’t featured in many of my sixes, but this year it is looking pretty good, is a bee magnet and has earned its place. The Astelia above it is rather yellow and flowering, the two not unconnected. If you’re thinking New Zealand, don’t. The Tea tree is a Tasmanian endemic and the Astelia hails from Chatham Island, 800km off NZ’s east coast.
Five.
I have a self sown orchid flowering. A year ago I put it in a six and remarked that it was under threat from the encroaching Crocosmia ‘Paul’s Best Yellow’, a beautiful but vigorous from. This year the orchid is clearly suffering from the unfair competition and I’m ruing not moving it a couple of months ago. I’ll maybe pull out a few stems of Crocosmia and water the orchid occasionally. Dactylorhiza grandis, hybrid between common spotted and southern marsh orchids, maybe.
Six.
Eucomis ‘Sparkling Burgundy’ is probably something I’ve put in sixes in flower but IMHO it is by then past its best in that the rich purple foliage colour will have gone somewhat brownish and the flowers usually flop or need supports that add nothing good to the effect. My camera gets very confused when I try to take its picture; it thinks night has come early.
It would be quite something to be able to make a newly repaired fence one of my six for next week but don’t hold your breath. Or a good bit of rain and full water storage. Both would be even better.
garden ruminations 
Thanks for talking about projects to be finished. Hope to have installed a trellis by next week! Here are my 6; https://fakeflamenco.com/2025/05/24/six-rainy-blooms-one-spring-day/
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GREAT SIX and looking AWESOME! Thanks for sharing!
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Good luck with the fence – I agree that these necessary maintenance tasks are never very appealing! Your eucomis looks really striking, even this early in the season. I am dutifully feeding all mine regularly this season but sadly most are so far no-shows, and athough my Sparkling Burgundy is through, its foliage is just plain green,as it invariably is…any idea why that might be? My six are roses again: https://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com/2025/05/24/another-six-roses-on-saturday/
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I do hope the fence mending is easier than it looks. Good luck!
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Fantastic Eucomis! I am fascinated by NZ (or nearby) plants and those two are new to me. I would have thought the Leptospermum was Cotoneaster, oh well. I’m very fearful of bamboo and you’ve given me another reason not to try it. What’s more fun building fences or culling bamboo? I hope your gracious gardening year continues. https://theshrubqueen.com/2025/05/24/six-on-saturday-smells-like-summer/
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Jim, it is always very sporting of you to show the challenges you find and chat about how to meet them. It inspires me. Your garden is so lovely while mine is so wild, yet we often find ourselves grappling with similar issues… like encroaching bamboo. No sharp spades for us. We give the bamboo (ours is about 4″ across most times) a swift kick and then toss it into the ravine to the delight of the squirrels, who eat it. We use loppers on the rhizomes when we find them growing out of their allotted space. There are worse problems in the world today than enthusiastic plants, yet we still must tame them. I feel for your poor Begonia and your orchid. I’m also in the “sleeves rolled up and getting things done” frame of mind today. My six shows today a few eye-candy flowers, but also the projects I’ve been up to this week: https://woodlandgnome.wordpress.com/2025/05/24/six-on-saturday-recycled-re-purposed/ Have a terrific week!
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We have had the opposite problem here, the plants are fresh from being refrigerated, but nothing is moving much in the cold. My husband wanted a fence, but I know he does not have the motivation to maintain one, (and for a new fence, we would have to get a survey ($$), and place the fence five feet within our property line, so it is clear that we are to maintain both sides of the fence. I told him no. We will have trees. My mixed hedge that serves as a fence is coming along, and the trees are getting close to six feet tall. Just add mulch! I always think people are brave to plant bamboo – too aggressive for me, as cool as it looks. ( she says while side eyeing the Agastache that is coming up virtually everywhere because I like to watch the birds eat the seeds, so I don’t deadhead anything). Here are my six, which includes a trip to Centennial Garden, since my garden looks nearly the same as a month ago, though true, plants are larger.
https://wisconsingarden.wordpress.com/2025/05/24/may-24-2025-six-on-saturday/
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All of the pile of building material looks like a lot of work but how wonderful it will be when finished.
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An interesting six this week Jim – I’m always grateful when knowledgeable gardeners like yourself talk about things they wish they had done (ie move that lovely orchid earlier) as it makes me feel not quite so dundery and reminds me that gardens evolve. Our weather has been quite the opposite of yours this month – cold and very wet…
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Crocosmia has been an invader for me. I have pulled most of it out but new shoots still appear.
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Luckily my daughter managed to screw the slats back onto my fence – also nettles, brambles and wild clematis on the other side, but she managed to balance on the narrow breezeblock wall. Something I wouldn’t have a hope in doing! Trouble is the fences around my property have been there for at least 20 years and beginning to rot so there’s not a lot to screw anything into!
Love your contrasting foliage colours – always nice to have the dark red / purple in among the green I think. As for bamboo, after the exhausting effort of removing mine I am not tempted to ever grow it again, clump forming or not!
https://cornwallincolours.blog/2025/05/24/six-on-saturday-mindfulness/
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Agh! Sorry Jude, I am having trouble posting my comment on your blog today – here it is again – That is good advice, I often start out on the bench, then I spot something that needs tending to and think of another job and off I go again!
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WP can be such a pain! I had issues posting on Jim’s today. I usually resort to using the Reader to comment.
Likewise. You sit down for five minutes and then up you get to pull out a weed! My garden waste bin is full to overflowing (FMNs mainly) so I had a perfect excuse not to do any more weeding.
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I hope you got some of the wonderful rain that came my way last night. A great relief. I was taken by the wonderful foliage of Eucomis. What a colour. I have bamboo yet to tackle in my daughter’s garden, I think she has finally decided it should go. I wouldn’t want to be doing the fence and the bamboo on the same weekend! Good luck. Here’s my link, mainly roses https://n20gardener.com/2025/05/24/six-on-saturday-roses-2/
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I like your Camellia ‘Nightrider’ its super shiny, and I also empathise with that feeling of regretting decisions my past self made in the garden that present me has to deal with. My rose patch is getting rather congested but that is a nice problem to have.
Your new fence works well as an art installation if you call it call it a piece on potentiality for division.
After a long pause in my garden blogging, I’ve got six for this week that are mostly roses with raindrops, and a bleeding heart that looks like a diving turtle…. https://doingtheplan.com/2025/05/24/six-on-sat-pirouette-blythe-spirit-vanessa-bell-diving-turtle-wisteria-and-red-star/
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It was your orchid that drew my attention this week, it is very like the one that popped up in my garden last year in my mini meadow. It is in the shadiest part of the meadow and the wettest, under water in the winter! This year it has split into 2 plants and soon will be flowering with 2 spikes. I have wondered which orchid it could be, having looked it up in my wild flower book, but not finding anything the same. I was thinking Marsh Orchid but seemed rather different, now thinking it could be the same as yours, the leaves are the same and the flower spike is very similar, will show mine when it is flowering. My six for this week are here……………https://www.leadupthegardenpath.com
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I have grown supposedly clump forming bamboos in the past that after years of behaving nicely suddenly started going walk about all over the garden. It’s always exciting to find wild orchids popping up in the garden. Let’s hope it will stay and spread.
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Just finished replacing some fence panels after long deliberation, that was more than enough for me. Best of luck! I had an orchid pop up in the garden once, I think it was Epipactis helleborine but that was really a guess. Quite a drab thing really, nowhere as pretty as yours, but it was still a nice surprise. Popped up for a year then disappeared. Here are my six, very much meconopsis and primula orientated this week! https://ricksplantworld.blog/2025/05/24/six-on-saturday-24-05-2025/
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Blimey – I’m impressed you repair your own fences. I don’t suppose the fence growing near the beautiful foliage of ‘Nightrider’ needs repairing and perhaps moving a few feet or more into your neighbour’s garden while they’re away? Or perhaps move the path?! It’s a pity time travel isn’t an option sometimes https://onemanandhisgardentrowel.wordpress.com/2025/05/24/six-on-saturday-24-may-2025/
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Considering how little use they make of their garden next door – it’s all grass and they mow it about every six weeks, other than that they never venture into it – they might as well let me have a few feet of it.
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The first of your six is something I think about every time I look at photos I’ve taken in my own garden. Thinking about it is as far as I get . . . . good luck.
I love the foliage on “Nightrider”, and wow to the orchid!
My not-very-inspiring six today is here: https://mysanctuarygarden.wordpress.com/2025/05/24/six-on-saturday-24-05-25/
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Thinking about the fence is as far as I’ve got in at least two years that it’s needed doing. I did fix a prop against one post to hold it up, its been there 4 years at least.
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That makes me feel better!
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Are nettles the stinging sort? That would be majorly icky! I like them as a vegetable, but preferred to collect them from the forest across the road than to grow them in the garden. ‘Nightrider’ camellia looks like photinia. ‘Sparkling Burgundy’ eucomis looks like ‘Australia’ canna. Bamboo look like . . . bamboo. Anyway, I needed to look twice at some of yours. Here are mine.
https://tonytomeo.com/2025/05/24/six-on-saturday-bark-2/
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How do you prepare your nettles? I have made soup and pesto from nettles crowing at the local conservancy (They are near a viewpoint with seating, so when they reach a certain height, those ones get weed whacked, but when young and tender, you can fill a big bag).
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I just cook them like greens. To avoid handling them while fresh, I stuff them into a microwave and cook them until they are wilted. I can then wash them, although they are not easy to wash while wilted. Then, I cook them more completely. Also, I dry them and add their powder to other vegetables.
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Interesting. I have found that if you are careful, you can harvest without gloves, just never run your hand down the stem, only up. Of course it is easier to just wear nitrile gloves. I bag then, dump them into the sink full of water, swish them around with a wooden spoon and use tongs to get them into the colander to drain. Interesting – I had not though to dry them.
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Ha! No one else believes that they can be harvested without gloves. If they are fresh and turgid, they do not need to be dried (at least I do not think that they do). Washing them fresh is better than doing so while they are wilted from the microwave. Washing wilted greens rinses away some of the nutrients and flavor.
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I did not know if I believed it myself, but I tried it and it seemed to work, as long as I paid attention to what I was doing.
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The nettles are the stinging sort and after a spell of dry weather they will be especially vicious. I won’t be wearing shorts.
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Fixing a fence alone is never a pleasant thing. It takes at least 2 people, especially given the weight of the panels. Good luck.
Speaking of this eucomis and its purple colour, mine in at the same stage here in my garden, and I’m expecting it to bloom in a few weeks.( I hope)
Dactylorhiza is also in a corner of the garden, but no flowers yet. https://fredgardenerblog2.wordpress.com/2025/05/24/six-on-saturday-24-05-25/
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Shame you don’t live closer; I’d have gladly taken you up on your offer to help with the fence! I’ll be doing it on my own sadly. The worst bit will be dealing with the concrete that is bound to be at the bottom of all the old posts.
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It would have been a pleasure to help you…Do you know if there are sealing foams instead of concrete? Ex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e8h51h6Nfo&pp=0gcJCdgAo7VqN5tD
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A pretty little Orchid, I hope it continues to thrive.
I’ve been out and about for my six this week
https://rosieamber.wordpress.com/2025/05/24/%f0%9f%8c%baa-garden-filled-with-rhododendrons-and-azaleas-sixonsaturday-opengardens-gardenvisit/
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