Six on Saturday – 2/5/2026

I took a call from a lady at Polgooth Garden club, wanting to pay a visit to our garden in June, a couple of days ahead of our first NGS opening. It’s only seven weeks away! The last few days I’ve been going round thinking I could do worse than have an opening at the beginning of May. There’s a haze of blue from bluebells, forget me nots, Omphalodes and Brunnera to accompany a range of plants at their flowering peak like Holboellia brachyandra, Camellias ‘Bob Hope’ and ‘Nightrider’, Azaleas, Maianthemum, Convallaria, Euphorbia mellifera and Melaleuca. I expect it to dip a little over the next month, hopefully to be firing on all cylinders again by June 19th.
Six on Saturday is an opportunity to show off half a dozen current stars and it is very simple to join in. Just picture six items of interest in your garden now and write a few words about them on a blog or some such. Does this still go on in the X sphere? I no longer partake of that particular poison. Then put a link in my comments below so the rest of the world can find it. There’s a guide here, all are welcome.

One.
My two seedling Azaleas from a presumed Azalea species, which I’ll put in next week, are both flowering. Both are beautifully scented but can’t match their mother in that regard.

Two.
Years ago I had an apple tree called ‘Suntan’, an excellent variety except for the fact it flowered when all my other apples had finished and consequently didn’t get pollinated, meaning that I would get a crop of half a dozen fruits if I was lucky. Not having space for another variety to pollinate it I gave up and dug it out. It threw up a sucker from its rootstock and when I came across an excellent but unknown apple from which I was able to steal scion wood, I grafted the new acquisition onto the sucker. I must have photographed it at the time, I may be able to date it. Last year it had a few flowers and around five apples, this year it is covered in flowers, after all my other varieties have finished. It is altogether possible that I have reintroduced ‘Suntan’, along with the same pollination issues. If all else fails I will steal a few scions from an ornamental apple that is growing in the village and flowering now, and graft them onto this tree.

Three.
Convallaria majalis ‘Vic Pavlovski’s Gold’ is one of a number of variegated Lily of the Valley forms and I have had this plant for many years, during which time it hardly spread at all. Maybe that’s about to change, it’s certainly spread a bit quicker in the last year or two. It’s also become duller, but is at least flowering. I’m ashamed to say I’ve forgotten who Vic Pavlovski was.

Four.
I sowed tomatoes too early, an act of folly compounded by subsequent events. I ended up with plants 45cm tall in 9cm pots sitting on the window ledge. They needed potting on and I chopped most of them down to something more sensible, they’re shooting again. I wondered what would happen if I tried to strike the tops as cuttings. Answer: after 11 days I have 4 more plants, rooted and ready to pot up and with the flowers 15cm above the compost rather than 45cm. Not bad for a variety the seeds of which were 32p each.

Five.
Polygonatum odoratum ‘Purple Stem’ drew a very short straw when planting locations were being handed out and ended up tucked under Camellia ‘Debbie’. Now that ‘Debbie’ is getting a bit bigger, I have started to raise her skirts, letting light in to the Polygonatum, which has this year rewarded me with much the best performance it has put on to date. You still need to be on your hands and knees to appreciate it mind.

Six.
At 8.45am on Wednesday I set up a speaker in Sue’s greenhouse and played Keith Jarrett’s Blackberry Winter Take 9. Ten miles further west Sue was taking her last short journey to the same tune but hadn’t wanted anyone to see her off. I spent the whole morning in her greenhouse preening and primping her cacti and succulents. Early on, this one, Echinocereus scheekii, was sporting these beautiful pink flowers but by nine o’clock they’d closed up completely, only to reopen at nightfall. Sue was not in the habit of going to her greenhouse early in the day, let alone after dark and the flowers will likely only last a few days, so it’s quite likely she never saw it in flower. It certainly picked a portentous moment to put on a show.

I’m just going to sneak in one more picture, of the garden looking back towards the house from the top corner. The bluebells will shortly get deadheaded and the forget me nots pulled out. The red Berberis needs tying up somehow. I’ve seen gardens looking worse on the first of May.