Six on Saturday – 31/1/2026

I did a talk for St Breward Garden Club this afternoon (Friday). Time was when garden clubs all had evening meetings but there are a few now holding meetings in the afternoon. Most members are retired, many are getting on a bit and don’t find night driving very easy. It suited me, driving across Bodmin Moor in rain and mist with a serious risk of flooded roads is not something I want to be doing at night either. Gardening up there must be a challenge, granitic bedrock and high rainfall must make it much harder than it is for me. So I return to my own patch with the feeling that for all that the season is throwing at us, I shouldn’t complain too much.

Six on Saturday; a new week but the same brief; find six things in your garden to wax lyrical about, then wax lyrical about them. Oh, include a picture too. It’s all explained here, if I’m making no sense,

One.
The number six triggered a few synapses and I checked my SoS post from 1st February 2020. My first item was a few of the garden from an upstairs window and I was immediately struck by what had changed. We are clearly more likely to rip out and burn our laurels than rest on them. Here are the then and now pictures with a list of the more conspicuous changes. I’m thinking it’s good that it doesn’t stay the same, but ouch! all the same.

1 Acer palmatum ‘Atropurpureum’ Cut down because of disease.
2 Camellia, given away and replaced with another Camellia.
3 Schefflera taiwaniana, died from honey fungus.
4 Berberis ‘GoldenTorch’, died from honey fungus.
5 Camellia ‘Minato-no-akebono’, moved elsewhere, replaced with other shrubs.
6 Muhlenbeckia astonii, died.
7 Libertia, removed.
8 Trachelospermum, removed.
9 Camellia ‘Cleopatra’, died from honey fungus.
10 Camellia cv. given away.
11 Miscanthus cv. moved elsewhere.
The glasshouse hadn’t been extended because the polytunnel was still there too. That at least was a change very much for the better.

Two.
Last year somebody gave me a plant of Salvia ‘Blue Butterflies’ and it really performed well. Smaller flowers than some, but a lovely clear blue and produced from midsummer until late in the autumn. I took cuttings and the small plants are flowering already, so I’m hoping it will flower from now until late autumn, which would really be something.

Three.
The garden is full of promise, new shoots and buds abound; but I fear that in the absence of some sunshine some of it will never come to fruition. One of the Crocus tomasinianus decided to defy the rain and open anyway.

Four.
Call it Orwellian, but I think variegated Aspidistra was probably the first houseplant I grew after moving away from home and I feel obliged to keep on growing it. Back then I regarded it as indestructible, at least until I became acquainted with red spider mite. Now I am growing it in the garden, where it seems to be quite hardy growing in the considerable shade of a big Camellia. It’s no match for Cornish slugs and snails and I’m left wondering why I bother.

Five.
There’s a well established tradition in my winter posts to put in a picture of what seem absurdly precocious shoots on Clematis and accompany them with remarks about how bad I feel when I cut them all off in the annual hard pruning. Clematis viticella ‘Etoile Violette’, tradition upheld.

Six.
The first few flowers are out on several of the Camellias in our garden but I’m trying to hold back until they’re in full bloom. Some are just so unapologetically strident that a single small bloom can be quite arresting and there’s no doubt that ‘Adorable’ is one such. It’s screaming “you don’t have to like me but you sure as hell ain’t gonna ignore me!”

And that, as I’ve said many times before, is yer lot. I hope you (and I) get a few glimpses of the sun in the coming week.