Six on Saturday 28/6/2025

Categories six on saturday53 Comments on Six on Saturday 28/6/2025

Nearly the end of June, high summer. I’m more or less into a ticking over phase, everything is planted and growing, it just needs watering and tying and tweaking to give of its best. It looks like we’re due a short lived burst of heat, peaking on Monday at about 26C.

Six items of interest for Saturday should be a breeze at this time of year, so please join us if you can. The participants guide is here, should you need it. Basically you post six items from your garden and say a few words about them. Don’t forget to post a link down below in my comments so we can all find your post.

One.
The first lilies are open. This is ‘Fusion’, a hybrid between an Asiatic and an American species. I liked the pictures, I like the blurb, I like it even more in the flesh. We have cats; cats and lily pollen don’t mix; castration required.

Two.
Sticking with hot colours, out front Watsonia is not far off its glorious best. I would prefer it to stay a bit more upright but cannot think of an aesthetically acceptable way to support it, so it gets to do its own thing. I’ve never known which species of Watsonia this is, pillansii possibly. I was reading recently that they need plenty of water to perform to their best, maybe it would encourage it to grow upright too.

Three.
Veronica spicata is having its best year by far, having been moved from the dry bank it was on to a more fertile and moist patch. Over a metre tall and a soft slightly purplish blue, it’s finally dragged itself clear of the risk of being ousted as barely garden worthy.

Four.
Eucryphia milliganii is the smallest species of its genus and a Tasmanian endemic. A small evergreen tree with very small leaves and small white flowers. Its contribution to the garden, on any parameter I can think of, is small. I like it very much, it is at no risk of being ousted by me.

Five.
Dahlia ‘Black Jack’ was another plant picked up at some irregular plant sale, possibly the Hardy Plant Society version. I don’t know how I’d cope if all I had was supermarkets and Garden Centres. I have to admit that part of the reason for including this is that the camera actually did a pretty good job of capturing a true likeness. Very often really dark flowers fail to make much impact because they merge into their background. This flower is still eye-catching in the fading gloom of a very overcast evening; in a portal into the abyss sort of way.

Six.
Don’t be ridiculous, this doesn’t have to be my last one! Well, can I do another six? Pretend I’m someone else as well as myself? It’s not fair, I’d whittled my shortlist down to twelve.
What’s that? Act my age not my shoe size! Cheek!.
Hydrangea serrata ‘Fuji-no-taki’ is a very grown-up sort of plant. (Not ‘Izu-no-hana’, as originally identified in this post) No gaudy colour, no architectural form. Just a quiet but assured refinement. In averagely dry conditions only 50-60cm high and wide, a little more in moist, fertile shade. Double white flowers that start out tinged green and end up tinged pink. The sort of plant that speaks volumes about the refined tastes of the garden owner. So a bit of a mystery why I grow it, let alone have two.

Another Saturday, another week, another month gone, never to return. I’m off out now (it’s 10:20) to do a little pest control. There’s a mist so heavy it’s almost drizzle, the slimy ones will be partying.

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Published by Jim Stephens

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

53 thoughts on “Six on Saturday 28/6/2025”

  1. Love the dahlia! I only have a couple of single dahlias in bloom so far. The divas aren’t quite there yet. But soon.

    The Eucryphia milliganii is very pretty and a new one to me.

    I never thought of ‘castrating’ the lily. I might do that to the rogue one that showed up in my garden with some free irises just in case since the neighbor’s cat visits here daily. Though I’ll probably still rehome it eventually. Unlike yours, it’s not a stunner.

    Thanks for hosting! Here are my six: https://minhus.blogspot.com/2025/06/six-on-saturday-feels-like-summer.html

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  2. Overcast? 26 degrees? These sound like luxuries compared to here, with 32 degrees forecast for Monday… hey ho…! Your lilies are gorgeous, although you have got me wondering what effect mine will have on the local cat population who use our garden as a public convenience… well, I do remind them that it’s not their garden, and will now tell them that lily pollen is not good for them, and that they enter at their own risk. I am loving veronica in our garden too, although none of them are in moist conditions. Thanks for hosting, Jim – here are my six: https://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com/2025/06/28/six-on-saturday-its-hot/

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  3. Pingback: Six on Saturday: It’s Hot! | Rambling in the Garden

  5. Watsonia, Veronica and that lush dahlia are my favourites this week. But I shall not be tempted by dahlias. Saying that I discovered the tubers from my “Dahlia Mignon” which I thought I had composted at the end of last summer, in a box in the conservatory and I have potted them on. Will the slimy ones get to the flowers I wonder… And yes, it’s been a very misty and humid week and as I type this I can see the fog approaching from the south-west.

    Six on Saturday | Bold and Beautiful

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  13. Thanks for yet another interesting SonS post. Love the lily and the hydrangea. I just wonder if the hydrangea might actually be Dancing Snow aka Wedding Gown rather than Izu-no-hana which I know as blue?

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    1. You are absolutely right about it not being ‘Izu-no-hana’, I’m getting my Japanese names mixed up. It’s ‘Fuji-no-taki’. That’s what comes of writing my SoS post mid/late evening after I’ve had a couple of beers. I’ll edit the post.

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      1. interesting. Never heard of Fuji-no-taki’ but looks lovely. Just looking it up in Maurice Foster’s superb book and he highly recommends it.

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      2. No idea why WordPress has suddenly called me observant******. All best, Everard

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  16. Pingback: Six on Saturday: 28 June2025 – My Tiny Welsh Garden

  17. Thank goodness the cats are safe. My lilies have been and gone and didn’t make a six. I also noted that my martagon lilies have been destroyed by lily beetles, even though I was out hunting them. I have a form of veronica in the garden I’m sure but your is the one I really want! A note has been made. What a beautiful dahlia, but I have foresworn them and will not be tempted. As you say high summer is spoiling us. Here’s my link Six On Saturday: The garden survives | n20gardener

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    1. Martagon lilies are the only sort I have planted in the ground and they are going backwards. They have had the odd lily beetle but mainly they don’t reappear after winter and the few that do are half the size they were the year before. I’ve yet to try growing them in pots, plunging them for summer and putting them in my tunnel for winter.

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      1. Mine seem happy in a shady corner but they are out of the way and I often forget them. The lily beetles never do. Maybe it’s time for a move.

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  18. Pingback: Six On Saturday: The garden survives | n20gardener

  19. Jim, I hope you enjoyed a productive and satisfying hunt last night. You inspire my- perhaps I should head out in the darkness to scare off hungry 4-leggeds as you head out in the misty darkness to gather mollusks. And I do hope you are keeping a file of your ‘spare-sixes’ this summer to share with us next winter. I’d love to see your summer garden again on a January day. My six today are mostly ferns, some of them new to me- and also a reblooming Magnolia liliiflora. It is such a treat to enjoy flowers and leaves together, and such a surprise to look up and see the flowers at all. I think the Hibiscus growing all around the Magnolias inspired them to join the party and attract some bees: https://woodlandgnome.wordpress.com/2025/06/28/six-on-saturday-the-end-of-june/ Best wishes for moderate temperatures and plenty of rain as we head into July.

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    1. The info about Watsonias came from here: http://www.johnjearrard.co.uk/plants/watsonia/genus.html Its author is a man I know pretty well and I would trust his take on it. The Veronica just seems to have liked our weather conditions this year. It usually starts to sulk at the first suggestion of drying out and clearly that has made a huge difference to how well it performs. We’ve been baled out with decent amounts of rain at just about the right intervals this year, unlike most of the rest of the country, so it’s never been put under stress.

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  33. Do Watsonia naturalize? Do some of the fancy hybrids produce viable seed? I see them growing wild around here, but I have no idea how they got that way. Daffodil grow wild here, but not because they are naturalized. They just get moved about with dumped soil. Incidentally, one of the best colonies of wild Watsonia that I have seen is on the edge of northbound Highway 1, just north of Watsonville.

    Anyway, these are my six.

    https://tonytomeo.com/2025/06/28/six-on-saturday-unexpected/

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    2. Watsonia have naturalised on Tresco in the Isles of Scilly, 28 miles off the tip of Cornwall. They’re well established in the sand dunes there, along with Agapanthus. I’ve not seen them naturalized elsewhere but they’re only borderline hardy here so not widely grown.

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