Six on Saturday – 7/2/2026

Categories six on saturday, , , 45 Comments on Six on Saturday – 7/2/2026

A friend of Sue’s came round earlier and gave me a pot of snowdrops. I’m a million miles from being a galanthophile but even I could see that they were not an ‘ordinary’ variety, but I have no idea what they are, and not much idea how to find out. I’ll take some pictures and put them in next week’s six for those of you who know about such things to peruse.
This is what we’re like, give us a new plant and we’re happy as pigs in *#@!. Hardly matters what it is. A few among you will be champing at the bit to see what it is, the rest perhaps more measured in your enthusiasm. If you’re reading this and are unmoved by what may or may not be an exciting and/or rare snowdrop, then I would respectfully suggest that you’re in the wrong place, reading the wrong blog. This is ‘Six on Saturday’, a blog meme for people who like plants, and most of us have a little to share about six of our own each Saturday. You are invited to join in, there was even a post dedicated to the conventions that apply, not that many of us follow them rigidly.

One.
Talking of snowdrops, I have but three named forms, including ‘S. Arnott’, distinguished in the main by being big and robust. I’m not envisaging it taking over the garden while I’m still alive, I think I still have the same number I started with about three years ago.

Two.
This may not be the first time I’ve mentioned Crocus tomasinianus this season but today was sunny and they were open en masse, which is a first for me this year. I’ve bought various forms over the years but it seems to me that bulbs bought under the same are often different and I suspect that many of mine are seedlings from the originals, so they’re a pretty mixed bunch. I’ve even got a pure white one, which I have never knowingly planted.

Three.
The first forget-me-not is flowering and it’s pink. There are a few plants that can flower almost anywhere along a pink to blue gradient but it’s not at all clear to me that the reason they vary is the same for all of them. I wonder if these will turn blue or whether later flowers on the same plant will be blue.

Four.
I splashed out £25.99 on nematodes for vine weevil at the beginning of September last year and treated everything that seemed susceptible to attack. I’ve subsequently lost more young plants in the propagation house than I ever have and I’m pretty sure I should have waited for at least a month. It seems that a lot of eggs hatched out after the nematodes had died out. It may be that I wasn’t conscientious enough about keeping the pots moist but I think it was simply that there were still adults about laying eggs late in the year. Fuchsias and Hydrangeas have taken the brunt and if I’m honest I don’t need more hydrangeas and Fuchsias are becoming pointless as more and more get gall mite. It looks like there may be one nematode infected grub but even it is still alive.

Five.
The Camellias are slowly beginning to open but none is as yet in full bloom. This is ‘Annette Carol’, which is loaded with buds and will definitely get another outing later on if frost doesn’t spoil the show. Such a pretty, flouncy pink.

Six.
When it’s sunny we leave the inner door of the front porch open and benefit from free solar heating. This morning we were also benefitting from the perfume of either the Jetfire daffs or the cyclamen, perhaps both. I’m soon going to have to find more suitable quarters for the Cymbidium though.

A day like today, with plenty of sunshine after weeks of rain; with the days beginning to lengthen markedly, really makes me yearn for more of the same. Sadly it’s not what’s in the forecast and it is still only early February. At least I didn’t struggle to find six things this week. Have a good week.

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Published by Jim Stephens

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

45 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – 7/2/2026”

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  6. Yes, ‘Annette Carol’ is a lovely Camellia. The color and form of the bloom are so beautiful. The scene of your potted plants warmed by the sunlight is encouraging. My “six” would be so boring compared with yours currently, but before long this part of the northern U.S. will be covered in Snowdrops and Crocuses, too. Thank you for sharing yours and keeping hope alive.

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  7. Pingback: February 7, 2026 Six on Saturday – Gardening in the Prairie

  9. Are some places/environments/plants more prone to vine weevil, Jim? It’s not a problem I have ever knowingly had – I assume I would know if I had them? Your main crocus picture reminds me of our streamside grass (although our crocus have barely opened in this week’s rain, but we did have one pleasant day this week, with sight of some blue sky and sunshine) That camellia is gorgeous, as is your array of pots, which look so bright and cheerful. Thanks for hosting https://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com/2026/02/07/six-on-saturday-not-long-now/

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    1. Not many things could generate such heart felt jealousy as your statement that vine weevil is not a problem you’ve ever knowingly had. I hope you know how lucky you are. The main reason we get a lot is that we grow a lot of plants in pots and the constantly moist and easily navigated environment it provides is ideal for the larvae. Each adult is able to lay around 1000 eggs, so unless there’s a very high attrition rate, their numbers increase extremely rapidly. The nursery industry doesn’t have the chemicals available to it that it used to have, like chlorpirifos and aldrin, and as far as I know nothing now available gives the near 100% control that they did. Not that I think it was wrong to withdraw them, quite the opposite. They have a few favourites amongst the plants here, but I wouldn’t say anything is completely safe.

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      1. That’s really interesting to read Jim, and I can begin to appreciate why it can be such a problem. I have just Googled to see how big they are (big!), so I would certainly have noticed them if I had them here! I was reading in Which/ Gardening yesterday that researchers have discovered that apple sauce can be used to attract vine weevils in baited refuges in the g/h – worth a try?

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  10. Pingback: Six on Saturday: Not Long Now | Rambling in the Garden

  11. I love tommy crocuses. I have a pinkish and a lavender. I’m going to look to buy a white one. They spread like mad for me. I just gave some away to friends who had not heard of them before. My snowdrops are maddeningly slow to clump up. I only have two kinds of the most ordinary.

    Sorry about the vine weevil. Yuck. I lost a couple of young rhododendrons to strawberry root weevil last year, I think. And about ten fuchsias to gall mite. And lilies to virus or something. Made for a disheartening year. R Theo of The Fuschietum gave me starts of three fuchsias that are resistant. I hope that I won’t have more trouble with my established once this year because I have an awful lot of them.

    Gosh, I didn’t mean to start whinging on about my garden troubles!

    Here is my six. Things rather than plants.

    7 Feb: Six on Saturday—garden tchotchkes

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    1. We have a lot of Fuchsias too and are gradually finding out that very few are completely gall mite resistant. I struggle to resist whingeing about the problems but sometimes a moan in a blog elicits a useful coping strategy, so I give myself limited permission to moan.

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  12. Jim, I’m one looking forward to seeing your new snowdrops. But I’m not truly interested in giving them a proper name tag, only in enjoying the variations in their shapes and patterns. I love snowdrops because they bloom before most anything else does here, except the camellias. You have an impressive six this week, but that is what we all expect from you since you have such a wonderful variety of plants and wonderful warm spaces to grow them! I am sharing photos of ice and snow, mainly this week, but also a photo of the cover of the book I have published about gardening this week. I am very happy to be writing about gardens, plants, and gardening while the snow falls and the wind howls outside this winter. I hope it will bring some pleasure to gardening friends. You will find my six for the week, and more about my new book here: https://woodlandgnome.com/2026/02/07/six-on-saturday-crystallized/ and also the same post here: https://forestgardenblog.wordpress.com/2026/02/07/six-on-saturday-crystallized/

    I hope your Camellia buds weather the cold without damage! Cheers!

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  21. I’d be quite happy to linger in the porch. None of my daffs are open yet and everything is very wet. My sunny day was Wednesday, been a mx of sunshine and showers since, mainly showers. And to cap the power failures, and Internet problems we had the water cut last night. I am so over this winter.

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      1. I am the same. I’ve only been growing them for two years. Started with 22 and have now probably bought close to 100. If I keep going at this rate, I’ll have thousands soon.

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    1. Ordinarily I’d have left the pot saucer with the vine weevils out in the garden for the birds to eat but it was windy and I was afraid they’d get tipped over and liberated.

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  28. It was wonderful seeing the sun yesterday, made a nice change from all the rain! Looking forward to seeing your snowdrop next week, all my wild ones should be flowering by then. Lovely camellia, such a pretty pink, I’ve just noticed that mine has just started flowering, will have to wait for next week for that too. My six are here………………….https://www.leadupthegardenpath.com

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