Six on Saturday – 27/9/2025

Categories six on saturday, , 50 Comments on Six on Saturday – 27/9/2025

That great British conversation opener, grumbling about the weather, has been denied to me this week. Nothing to complain about.
A good deal of the week has seen me in Sue’s glasshouse, trying to get firmly on top of mealy bug before winter. I’m just washing it off with a pump up sprayer set to produce a fine jet of water. When that’s done, which it nearly is, I’ll do a spray to mop up any new hatchlings.
The fine weather hasn’t produced a flush of new growth or flower but it has largely halted the decline of what is already there. The autumn light has been beautiful and my attempts to capture it as unsuccessful as ever. At least it’s good enough to encourage me to try.
If you’ve also been tempted out in your garden with a camera, you only need six to join in with the Six on Saturday meme. Post pictures of six things in your garden, add a few explanatory words and post it online somewhere, then put a link to it in my comments below and Bob’s your uncle. Should you need it, there’s a participants guide here.

One.
Sue’s glasshouse and some of the contents therein. Mostly sparkly clean.

Two.
This is ‘Vlad’. Vlad stands 80cm tall and has spines up to 10cm long. Vlad demands respect, and gets it. You don’t turn your back on Vlad and bend over, not if you know what’s good for you.

Three.
I bought Nerine ‘Zeal Giant’ from somewhere, sometime. It has flowered before but this is the first year it’s really shown its quality. I’m going to keep it as a pot plant though, our slugs are well enough fed as it is. I took pictures of it this morning both in shade and in sun; neither looks quite right now that I look at them on the computer screen. Magenta?

Four.
I need to pick my apple crop, they’re beginning to drop. I’m talking about my “family” tree, which started out as ‘Elstar’ on MM106 and onto which I’ve grafted several other varieties. The best of these is ‘Holstein’, thought to be a Cox seedling, raised in Germany and introduced in 1918. I had one of these two with my lunch today and will have the other tomorrow. Yummy.

Five.
I put my fairly recently acquired Zantedeschia ‘White Giant’ into a six in May when it was flowering. Once the flowers were done it pretty much just sat there, until a few weeks ago when it decided to put on a growth spurt. It’s producing new and massive leaves and I’m wondering what it is planning to do for winter. My expectation was for it to die to the ground but at the moment it looks like it has other ideas.

Six.
Our Salvias have not had a vintage year, which is somewhat surprising since I’d have thought this summer would have been right up their street. One ‘Amistad’, overwintered under cover in a 3L pot last year, has been outstanding, it’s absolutely enormous and has been flowering for many months. The plants in the ground over last winter survived but were very slow to get going in spring and the young plants we had started very small and then struggled to make growth in the dry weather. This lot are ‘Black and Bloom’ with a bit of ‘Amistad’ at the back. I may dig up one or two and overwinter them in pots, in addition to the cuttings we’ve done.

Another week down and I’m off to Rosemoor today for the AGM of the RHS RCM Group, South West. Rhododendron, Camellia and Magnolia Group that is, with me going along to fly the flag for Camellias primarily. It’s always a highlight of my horticultural year.

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Published by Jim Stephens

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

50 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – 27/9/2025”

  1. Pingback: Garden Diary – Growing Herbs in Pots v Growing Directly within the Soil – Piglet in Portugal - Recipes Marketplace
  2. Pingback: Garden Diary – Growing Herbs in Pots v Growing Directly in the Soil – Piglet in Portugal - Recipes Marketplace

  4. You had so many amusing comments this week that I had a hard time picking a favorite. The cactus won.

    “Vlad demands respect, and gets it. You don’t turn your back on Vlad and bend over, not if you know what’s good for you.”

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  5. Like everyone else, I am in awe of Sue’s greenhouse! Please do tell us how big it is – it certainly looks enormous from the viewpoint you shared! I decided after seeing the aeoniums you shared a little while ago to add to mine, as they have all done well and have been completely trouble free – cacti don’t do it for me though, but I certainly respect Vlad! Thanks for hosting https://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com/2025/09/27/six-on-saturday-marking-time-maybe/

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    1. Sue’s glasshouse is 10 x 18ft. It was 10 x 12, then I added an extension 4 years ago. Sue’s Aeoniums are relatively trouble free but do get a bit of mealy bug and sometimes vine weevils. It’s a constant battle.

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      1. Oh that extra width must make a big difference too – how wonderful. We extended our working greenhouse from a basic 8 x 6 to just about 13 x 6 (as much additional length as would fit the space) having bought another g/h from eBay for about £12 – it was so worth it 👍No mealy bug on my aeonium but as it has been on other things I suppose it is just a matter of time

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  6. Pingback: Six on Saturday: Marking Time, Maybe? | Rambling in the Garden

    1. Sue’s glasshouse is 10 x 18ft. I used a mix of SB Invigorator, the active ingredient of which brings up nothing in a Google search!!! plus Monterey Insect spray which contains spinosad, an insect derived from bacteria, so broadly organic. It killed the adults but not the eggs, which hatched and were active within days of spraying. I very much doubt that any insecticide available to amateurs would kill the eggs. And of course all the dead adults and waxy stuff they coat themselves with were still there. I sprayed it all off with water and will follow up in a week or two with the spray mix to kill any young that hatch from eggs still left and any adults still hanging about, probably repeat 3 or 4 weeks later.

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  9. Pingback: Six on Saturday: Garden Diary – Growing Herbs in Pots v Growing Directly in the Soil – Piglet in Portugal

    1. The cacti I hate are the ones with flat pads and tufts of very fine, almost fluffy spines that you only have to brush against to get a bunch of almost invisibly thin, barbed spines in your hand or wherever.

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  11. Pingback: Six on Saturday | Michaelmas – Cornwall in Colours

    1. Cox’s Orange Pippin sets the standard against which all other apples are compared in the UK. It just has such a rich and complex flavour. Unfortunately it is also pretty fussy and doesn’t do at all well down here in the southwest. There are several hybrids with it that are easier to grow and approach its quality and I reckon Holstein is among the best of them. See https://www.orangepippin.com/varieties/apples/coxs-orange-pippin

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  13. I’d stay well away from Vlad. I have the utmost respect for anything with thorns, especially ones that size! Cleaning Sue’s collection is a true testament of your love! My Amarine is a similar colour to your nerines – they are not a colour which fits in well with anything else. I hope to visit Rosemoor next weekend, hoping there will be a decent display for me.

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    2. I didn’t see much of Rosemoor, just a quick whizz round at lunchtime, but it was looking pretty good. That’s very true about the Nerine colour, another reason for growing it in a pot so it can be positioned away from the worst clashers.

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    1. The apple tasted every bit as good as it looked. It’s blowing a gale here just now so by tomorrow I shall be picking them up off the ground and regretting not picking them before they fell.

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  19. Thanks for introducing Vlad. He is indeed a fearsome guardian. The apple is impressive and inviting. Looks like the Apple logo in the photo.
    Like you, I love the autumn light. After our recent rain, the decline has stopped temporarily and the autumn light gives the garden a peaceful glow.

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  20. I love Vlad, and I fear Vlad. I’m always delighted to hear other gardeners have silly nicknames for their plants. The nerines and that salvia are spectacular! We could use a bit more late summer colour in our borders, but I’ve had a very happy and productive time gathering seeds and sorting the greenhouse, and taking a tour of Frome’s underground history.

    https://doingtheplan.com/2025/09/27/magic-seeds-frome-tunnels-bellflower-pirouette-next-years-flowers-ladybug/

    Have a good time at the show!

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  21. Pingback: Magic seeds, Frome Tunnels, bellflower, pirouette, next year’s flowers, ladybug, – Doing The Plan
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    1. I’m not really sure why Salvias don’t survive winters better for us, probably a mixture of not liking winter wet, so rot sets in in the root system, and slugs taking off the new growth as fast as it emerges in spring. There were signs of life on almost all of them this spring but they just didn’t grow away very well at all.

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