They’re forecasting a very windy Saturday for us tomorrow, not really what I want. A fortnight away from a garden opening and all I can see are the things that will be over and the things that wont be out quite yet. I try not to make changes just before an opening, so I regard it as too late to do much other than preening.
Six on Saturday (the meme you’ve fallen into, if you’d not noticed) requires participants to pick just six items from their garden on a Saturday and to do a quick show and tell for the benefit of the global blogosphere. Put a link to your post in my comments below and you will be showered with compliments for your taste and skill and who doesn’t like a compliment. Years ago we wrote a guide for participants which is gathering dust on some internet shelf out there. Right, let’s get the show on the road.
One.
Three weeks ago Weigela florida ‘Kosteriana Variegata’ was featured here in full floral splendour. If next year’s floral splendour is not to take place six feet in the air, I have to chop it back most cruelly so that the new growth, which carries the flowers, starts near the ground. It is chopped, here’s the proof.
Two.
The lowest maintenance floral contribution to the garden is currently being provided by a Ceanothus and Lavatera hanging over the fence from next door. We’re looking at the south side of them, they get the north side. I’m betting we get ten times the flower display they get. Ceanothus ‘Puget Blue’ and Lavatera x clementii ‘Rosea’ will have to suffice as guesses.
Three.
Melaleuca squarrosa came through the winter in its best shape yet, which is to say completely unscathed. It has been flowering for weeks, looking all the while like it might be better later. If it’s better still next week, you will not get to hear about it.
Four.
Lathyrus grandiflorus continues to rampage its way around the garden, getting ever further out from where I originally planted it. I like it, I can let it scramble over other plants with little fear that it will do lasting damage, thinning it out if it gets too dense. Here it is scrambling up my standard Hydrangea paniculata, providing flower a couple of months before the hydrangea will. By the time the hydrangea is flowering I will have chopped down the pea.
Five.
Another plant that I’m going to have to hold my nerve over is Zantedeschia ‘White Giant’. It’s reached 1.6m with its flowers and the leafy bit is becoming quite bulky. Will it start to elbow other plants aside?, and if it does am I going to be bothered? Ask me in a couple of years time.
Six.
Hydrangea serrata ‘Cap Sizun’ is always the earliest of our Hydrangeas to flower. Hydrangeas are not easily kept smaller than the size they want to be naturally. Pruning them hard only results in them making very strong growth back to the size they were but with loss of flower. Our soil is not especially acidic but most of our hydrangeas flower clear blue, pale in this instance and set off against the very dark foliage. I didn’t get around to dead heading it, maybe I should get in there with the snips before we open; don’t want to let the side down. There’s a voice in my head telling me I must, a very familiar voice.
That’s it for this week then. The cacti are having a breather though there are lots of buds swelling up; they’ll be back. A wider shot for the header, mostly Geranium palmatum.
garden ruminations 
My Zantedeschia tops out a little less than yours. It is Z. aethiopica ‘Santiago’ also white. It is in part shade and seems to be quite mannerly. Beautiful H. serrata.
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A glorious selection, I share a guilty feeling with you. Mine is not having dead headed the climbing hydragea, the hardly notice at all. So I tell myself. Here’s my six https://n20gardener.com/2026/06/06/six-on-saturday-welcome-rain/
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My variegated Weigela seems to have stopped growing at about 5ft, it never seems to get any bigger so I don’t prune it, don’t know if it is the same variety as yours. Lucky you, being able to enjoy next doors plants for free. Like your hydrangea, such a lovely colour.
My six are here……….https://www.leadupthegardenpath.com
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That’s a lovely free gift from your neighbours. The only thing I get from mine is their dog barking interminably and demands to trim our hedge.
My six https://wp.me/p88ZiK-dlL
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Incessant dog barking is, or largely was, another neighbour. I got so sick of it barking, while they were there, I yelled ‘will you shut the ***k up’ at the top of my lungs so half the estate heard me. It’s been a bit better since, proving that they could have controlled it before. We don’t speak much.
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Your Melaleuca squarrosa is a beauty, your visitors will be enthralled. South and north aspects in planting along a boundary plantings: you have the advantage over your neighbour here. Here are my six https://noellemace.blogspot.com/2026/06/six-on-saturday-6-june-2026.html
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I visited the garden that we usually do a group opening with yesterday as they were open without us. One of their visitors, standing right behind me, asked the owner if the other garden was also open and was told it was not, but I said she could come and see it anyway if she wanted to. She will probably be the only visitor to see the Melaleuca in flower as it will surely be finished by the 19th. That’s gardens.
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Your garden is looking a show. I wish my neighbours had some plants worth sharing – at the moment I just get ivy and brambles coming over their side of the fence https://onemanandhisgardentrowel.wordpress.com/2026/06/06/six-on-saturday-6-june-2026/
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I get brambles and invasive honeysuckle from the neighbour too, but there were two baby robins in and out of it yesterday so I shall grumble quietly and to myself.
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So much blooming colour Jim! I’m quite green with envy! I hope the wind isn’t too destructive for the open garden.
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The Geranium palmatum is making a huge colour contribution right now but will soon go over. It will get whipped out the day after our first opening, leaving one or two for seed, and replaced with something else.
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Jim, I do love the colour of your Hydrangea. No matter what I add to the soil I grow it is always pink. Even if I buy a blue hydrangea it reverts to pink after one year. The colourful display offered by the Ceanothus and Lavatera is beautiful.
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It would be churlish of me not to be grateful for my neighbour’s contribution, but he did smash a window in Sue’s greenhouse, throwing a stone at probably one of our cats, and has never owned up to it, or indeed spoken to me since. I shall be churlish.
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Pick of the week for me is your Lathyrus grandiflorus. I love plants that scramble through others. My geranium Ann Folkard is just getting going and will probably feature in next week’s SoS https://potsandplots.blog/2026/06/06/sixonsaturday-06-06-2026/
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You’d like Maurandya barklayana, easy enough from seed.
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Ooh, yes, that does look like my sort of plant – I’ll add it to the list.
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Ceanothus cultivars can be difficult to identify. Lathyrus grandiflorus is one that I am unfamiliar with. I thought that it was Lathyrus latifolius, so had to look it up. Hydrangea serrata is very impressive. Here are my six. https://tonytomeo.com/2026/06/06/six-on-saturday-exotic-native/
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One head gardener I worked under would identify anything he didn’t know as Californian Lilac; he figured if they didn’t know and were asking, they wouldn’t know he was lying. ‘Puget Blue’ was one we grew on the nursery and seemed a reasonable educated guess, or BS if you prefer. Hydrangea serrata manages to have a refinement that H. macrophylla lacks, even though they’re quite similar. I suspect ‘Cap Sizun’ might be a hybrid between the two.
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The sweet peas are really lovely – it’s my first year growing them and I think it will definitely be something I repeat again and again.
It’s always nice when the neighbours provide a floral display. Our neighbour on the left-hand side is a great rose enthusiast, and some of her beautiful old roses have been waving their heads in our garden these past two weeks.
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The ceanothus and lavatara mix is really very successful! Here, one has finished flowering, and the other hasn’t started yet.
Another thing I noticed closely in your Six is the Melaleuca. I’ve had one for 6y, but it doesn’t grow much and I’ve never had any flowers. Perhaps I should move it? https://fredgardenerblog2.wordpress.com/2026/06/06/six-on-saturday-06-06-26/
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