Six on Saturday – 8/11/2025

I can’t quite believe that I’ve taken pictures over the last couple of days and now have more than enough from which to pick six. True, some are repeats of things I posted in the last few weeks, but that, in a way, is the point. Plants that were looking good a month or six weeks ago are still looking good. We’ve had wind and rain and very few flowers remain unscathed, but they are there and they are colourful and I am grateful.

Six items are what I require for the Six on Saturday meme, and what you will require should you choose to join our community. Post pictures of six garden related items with whatever explanation is appropriate, and put a link to your post in my comments below. Should you need it, there’s a participants guide here.

I’ve not spent much time in the garden this week because of the weather and other demands on my time. I have a jobs list for the winter and ticked a couple more things off it. I put together a vegetable seed order then realised I needed hardly any of it since I have seed from this year that should be good for another season. Right, that’s enough waffle, to business:

One.
Salvia ‘Indigo Spires’ was a purchase from Hill House Nursery in Landscove, whose website I just looked up only to get the shocking news that it has closed down. The auction was on 26th August and it is perhaps as well that I didn’t know since I might have been tempted to spend a lot of money, though I suspect that by the time they closed there likely would not have been much of the good stuff left. So another little independent nursery bights the dust, very sad. It was a quirky place that we would call into if we were passing but not make a special trip to. Perhaps never quite the same after it’s founder Ray Hubbard died seven years ago. Tender perennials like Salvias were one of their specialties.
‘Indigo Spires’ has flowered for months and is a fabulous rich colour. There are young plants in the greenhouse, I am doubtful that the plants in the ground will survive the winter and they are too big and unruly to be worth lifting.

Two.
Fuchsia ‘Delta’s Sarah’ has appeared in quite a number of sixes over the years, it appears to be relatively widely available and justifiably popular. For us it is hardy enough not to get cut back by winter cold and also seems sufficiently resistant to gall mite to be left unpruned rather than cut to ground level like most of the other Fuchsias we grow. Which is all good since it’s a real beauty and even though the flowers are not now in perfect condition, I’m not going to complain about it in November.

Three.
Last week it was Begonia ‘Tye Dye’, this week I’m giving ‘Garden Angel Blush’ a second outing for 2025. Five weeks ago it was looking good enough to include and it’s still looking as good, if not better. ‘Connie Boswell’ is beside it and ‘Tye Dye’ in the background, all growing in the shade (and highly competitive rootzone) of my big bamboo. I will pot them all up ahead of serious cold and overwinter them under cover, then chop the bamboo roots back from their planting holes before they go back in spring. All three would survive in the ground with the protection of a layer of leaves.

Four.
Persicaria sinuata Edward Needham Collection, is, like many members of its genus, a bit problematic. On the plus side it is a very useful prostrate plant that thrives in sun or light shade, in good or poor soil. It flowers right through the growing season and while its spread can be quite rapid it is easily curtailed. Less clearly a positive is that it sets prodigious amounts of seed which germinates in carpets around the parent plant and also seems to get spread around to appear elsewhere. In previous years I hadn’t seen that as a problem; there were only a few and they are easily recognized and pulled up. This year there are far more and I’m worried that it could turn into one of those impossible to eradicate beasts that you rue the day you ever let it loose in your garden. I have a few already, I don’t need any more. Here it is growing intermingled with Ceratostigma plumbaginoides and the two had seemed to be rubbing along OK but now the persicaria looks to be becoming dominant.

Five.
Back to the theme of looking good enough to show again, here is Camellia sasanqua ‘Navajo’ for a second outing. The weather this morning provided a perfect illustration of why the place to plant winter flowering shrubs is right outside a window. No way would I have wanted to venture out in order to see it.

Six.
Camellia sasanqua ‘Paradise Little Liane’ is right in front of ‘Navajo’, in full sun in the front garden. All the sasanqua camellias flower more freely given at least some direct sunlight in our climate. ‘Paradise Little Liane’ was raised in Australia and marketed as a hedging plant, which would mean it was happy in open conditions in Australia. In Cornwall it barely flowers at all unless in full sun. The flowers are quite small and fragile, so it flowers well enough but the blooms often don’t survive for long. Just now it’s looking pretty good.

Hopefully some of the things that didn’t make the cut this week will be good for later since the garden is winding down at quite a pace. I do value the late performers though, they shorten the length of time to be endured before next season kicks off.