Six on Saturday – 17/1/2026

Categories six on saturday, , 43 Comments on Six on Saturday – 17/1/2026

It’s beginning to feel like winter has been going on for a long time and needs to loosen its grip. On the other hand, I don’t want time itself to go any quicker, it’s way too fast as it is. I’ve scraped together another six items, for one of which (number two), the modern world probably expects me to issue a trigger warning for those of a squeamish disposition. I’m sure most sixers are made of sterner stuff. The Six on Saturday brief is to post picture(s) and a few words about six things garden related on a Saturday. Put a comment down below with a link to your post, and Bob’s yer’ uncle. Need to know more? Lookie here.

One.
Unknown Camellia. For several years I have been working as a volunteer on the National Collection of Camellias at Mount Edgcumbe. They have no propagation facility so I have tried to root cuttings of some of the plants in the collection that strike me as at risk of being lost. There is an area of the park known as the Zig-Zags, about a mile along the coast from the main garden, where there are a number of old and mostly unidentified camellias that may date from the mid 1800’s. This is one of them, taken from a younger plant in the same area that may itself be an earlier (1980’s ?) propagation from one of two much older plants of the same variety. It flowers February-March in the park, my rooted cutting is in my glasshouse, so earlier.

Two.
I came downstairs on Wednesday to find an offering from our cats lying on the floor. Nothing new about that, but this wasn’t anything I’d seen before. The size of a shrew but gingery and looking like a tiny mouse. It’s a harvest mouse, Europe’s smallest mammal. In all probability I’ll never see another and the thought that the only time I will ever have seen one is when our cats killed it makes me sad. I put it on my scales and it weighed just under 6 grams.

Three.
It was a typically dull morning on Thursday, heavy overnight rain had given way to drizzle. I climbed onto the bank at the back of the garden and hoisted my camera aloft on a long monopod to get this high view, primarily to highlight how bright Hakonechloa macra and its varieties are in these conditions. Last week’s storm thinned them out but the best one for both resilience and brightness is H. macra ‘Albostriata’. It’s paler and the leaves roll up somewhat if it gets dry, but that doesn’t happen a lot here in mid winter. Most years it gets left until the end of February when I cut it down as the new shoots start to emerge. The tall grass in the foreground is Miscanthus ‘Morning Light’.

Four.
This melee consists of Maurandya barclayana, which is a perennial climber that usually dies in the winter, Fuchsia hatschbatchii, a hardy species Fuchsia that I usually cut to the ground each year only for it to grow back to 6ft or more and Clematis viticella ‘Polish Spirit’, already shooting away and due to be hard pruned in February. Most of the support for all of them has been a big Magnolia ‘Ann’ but I cut it down to around 2ft so it won’t be supporting anything this year, even if it shoots from the bare trunks. A dilemma for which I haven’t yet worked out a solution.

Five.
Yucca gloriosa ‘Variegata’ doesn’t seem to have a very fixed flowering time. This year it got it completely wrong, starting to put up flower spikes deep into autumn. I don’t recall when I first noticed them, but I thought at the time it had left it a bit late. Up they came, only for the buds to get frosted before a single one had opened. I need to cut them off but I’m never quick to tackle the Yucca, it’s a beast. It needs a lot of dead leaves pulling off too.

Six.
Another non flowerer to finish; I’m resisting the temptation to put in another Camellia. My Phyllostachys aureosulcata ‘Spectabilis’ produces a flush of new canes each year and the height they reach depends on how much moisture is around over the three months or so over which they grow from nothing to their full height. I remove old canes after 3-4 seasons so while the plant may have produced equally tall canes in the past, it hasn’t in the last few years. The relatively sparse leaved new shoots are 4-6 feet taller than they’ve been for several years. They’re not easy to measure until they’re cut down, but will be around 16ft.

We’ve had a run of frosty and/or very windy weather so flowers are in short supply at the moment. I’m hoping that by next week there will be a bit more colour around though it could be a brief respite with more cold weather in prospect for the end of the month.

Unknown's avatar

Published by Jim Stephens

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

43 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – 17/1/2026”

  1. Ah poor little thing. I have just moved out of a house that was plagued with mice and I very rarely saw them but heard them scurrying around a lot. I only ever caught one once, in a humane trap and he was definitely just a plain old house mouse. Now I can plant things in the garden (we were renting before) I’m determined to put some camelias in as I have always admired your photos. I will be scouring your blogs for inspiration very soon (unless you have a quick recommendation for a complete camelia newbie!).

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Very happy to make some suggestions but have a look around and get an idea of what sort of Camellia you like the look of in respect of colour, single/double, big and blowsy or small and refined etc; the I can suggest good varieties of that type. One problem you will have is that of the many thousands of varieties that exist, only a few hundred are actually available.

      Like

      Reply

  2. Lovely garden ! I’d love to see it in Summer. If you are looking for a strong winterhardy shrub : aucuba japonica, evergreen, yellow spots on the leafs, light green leafs, red berries. The birds love it. You can cut it regularly to keep it small but normally it grow to 3 m high and wide.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  3. The view you have been able to achieve with your monopod is brilliant – high is the bank, and how long is the monopod? It makes your garden look very tidy but perhaps mine would look tidier from such a height too… ? 🤔 What have you cut down in the large patch in the foreground? Your variegated yucca clumps look far more attractive than the usual bog-standard green ones. My uninspiring and very boring six are at https://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com/2026/01/17/six-on-what-must-be-saturday/

    Like

    Reply

    1. My monopod (Manfrotto 679B) is 1.6m, and when held above my head add another couple of metres. Another .75 for the bank, so the camera is around 4.3m above ground level, with a 10mm wide angle lens. The large gap to the right of the grass had Salvias and other gap fillers this year because I took out a very big Skimmia a year ago (honey fungus), then you can just about see the stump of the Magnolia I cut to about 70cm a few weeks ago.

      Like

      Reply
  4. Pingback: Six on What Must be Saturday | Rambling in the Garden

  5. That is a brilliant trick with the monopod to get your high view. I’d guessed drone! Your garden really does look good in winter, from all angles.

    I am interested to hear what your solution to your melee problem will be. I am looking at untangling three clematis myself (and of course they need different pruning and one is terribly vigorous ;). )

    Here are my six : https://frogenddweller.wordpress.com/2026/01/17/six-on-saturday-glimpses-of-the-season/

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  6. Pingback: Six on Saturday – Glimpses of the Season | Frogend dweller's Blog

  7. I love the look of your winter garden. My grandma loved camellias and had three: white, red, and pink, around her patio.

    I think I’ve been extra strict with my first two sixes, having not just six garden things but six closely related things (signs, gates). I kind of like doing that so it will keep it up as long as I can.

    Sorry about that precious little mouse. We have been catching a lot of mice and rats in live traps, from under the house, and rehoming them over two miles away in the dune grass or woods. I feel sorry for them as they are released into a less cushy life. I was glad when my indoor outdoor (neutered male) cat (who sprays all over the house when not let out…he came to us that way at three and half years old) switched his attention from birds to voles. He brings his catches as gifts to the front porch.

    My six today. https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/2026/01/17/17-january-six-on-saturday-gates-part-one/

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I’ve always liked the idea of theming my posts but there nearly always seem to be a number of unrelated things vying for attention/inclusion so it’s only happened on a handful of occasions.

      Like

      Reply
  10. Pingback: Six on Saturday: Succulents Flowering in January – Piglet in Portugal

  11. Beautiful pink camelia! I need to look to the morning sky to see anything pink outdoors. Sorry about the little mouse. My elder cat used to try to catch voles, but she always pounced on the moving grass where they had just been. Current cat is afraid of the outdoors. They say it is better for the bird populations not to let cats roam, but some cats won’t tolerate being stuck indoors all the time. I kept mine on a leash, but she had no sense. She tried to go after a raccoon once and that would not have ended well for her. Luckily she came up short and the raccoon, not in the least perturbed went on his way. Here are my offerings – in one, there isn’t even a plant…I blame winter.

    https://wisconsingarden.wordpress.com/2026/01/17/january-17-2026-six-on-saturday/

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I also have a cat who wins the indoor outdoor battle by spraying. Just from keeping him indoors at night, I have to prop sheets of cardboard all around the house so he won’t spray books on lower shelves. My other cats are happy enough with catios, but the wild and demanding one came to us already fixated on the outdoors.

      Like

      Reply

    2. Keeping cats indoors has never been much of a thing here though I’m aware its much more common some other places. Ours catch the odd bird but far more mice. One came in just yesterday with a vole, a rare catch compared to mice. Voles must be lightning fast, or very smart; I’ve had them take bait repeatedly from traps without getting caught.

      Like

      Reply

      1. My old cat who loved the outdoors would jump for a vole, but always jumped to where the moving grass indicated that the vole had already passed that location. I demonstrated what she was doing wrong by planting my hands in front of the moving line, and the vole jumped about 2 feet in the air with a yelp before running off. My cat thought I was so awesome!

        Liked by 1 person

  12. Pingback: January 17, 2026 Six on Saturday – Gardening in the Prairie

    1. I used the 10 second timer. I do have a long cabled shutter release but can never find it when I need it. I was a little surprised that the Camellia rooted; the older clones are often reluctant rooters and I only had domestic strength hormone to work with. Often they produce a mass of callus but don’t root through or from it, which higher strength hormone can overcome.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  19. Pingback: Six On Saturday: Time to trowel up | n20gardener
  21. Pingback: Twisted hazel, purple hellebore, pond reflections, birdsong and growth - Six on Sat - Doing The Plan
  22. Pingback: Six on Saturday: 17 January 2026 – My Tiny Welsh Garden
  23. Pingback: Six on Saturday: {17/1/26} – Cath's Camera
  25. Pingback: Six on Saturday. 17.1.2026 | Lead up the Garden Path

    1. Preserving old varieties is a higher priority in my view than identifying them, but only if they are really good. There are tens of thousands of Camellia varieties and conserving them all is not practical or desirable. A lot are mediocre and should never have been named in the first place.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  28. It’s surprising you’ve never seen these kinds of rodents at home? Here we have many varieties of mice, voles, and shrews, which my cat sometimes brings me dead and sometimes alive to play with. I’ve seen this one here before.
    You need thick gloves to handle and care of a yucca! I speak from experience because last weekend, as I mentioned in my Six ( which you can read here: https://fredgardenerblog2.wordpress.com/2026/01/17/six-on-saturday-17-01-26/ ) 4 of my yuccas were damaged by the storm.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a comment