Six on Saturday – 27/6/2026

Another month all but over. What a week, and I think I probably got off comparatively lightly. I started the week with all my water storage full so at least I felt unconstrained with watering. Yesterday I spent putting up some extra, temporary and removable shading on a couple of the glasshouses; today I took it down again. Against cold you can wrap up and crank the heating, extreme heat is like noise, pretty much inescapable.

My plans for replacing early summer biennials with Salvias, Penstemons and annuals have progressed but not by as much as I’d have liked. I wanted it done as soon as possible after garden opening one so it wasn’t too obvious for garden opening two.

I just set up my camera to do a slow-mo movie of a cactus just about to open in the glasshouse. Hopefully I don’t have photos on the camera that I need for this six; if I do I may have to change my six. Or restart the movie, all the pictures I needed were on the camera.

The six I’m referring to being my Six on Saturday, whereby I and many other gardeners across the world, post pictures of six things happening in their garden on a Saturday. Every Saturday for some of us, less often for others. There are guidelines, adhered to by almost all of us, almost all of the time. It seems to work. Post your six and put a link to it in my comments below.

One.
I have been trying to settle on a viewpoint for the garden from which I can take regular shots through the year. I think this is the one, but when I went to take the picture this morning there was a small furry face looking up at me from the roof of the conservatory. A small furry face saying ‘aren’t I clever for getting up here’. It being obvious that she was clueless about getting back down, I leant out the window, at considerable peril, and lifted her through the window. For the first 8 or 9 years she appeared to be mute. Then she found her voice and won’t shut up. Loud and persistent, mostly saying ‘feed me!’.

Two.
We had the garden open Friday and Saturday a week ago. On Sunday the first bloom opened on Lilium ‘Fusion’ out the front. It joined an orange Watsonia that had been going for a few days but was well short of its best. At the rate things are going by Friday of next week when we open again, there will be very little left on either plant.

Three.
The Watsonia, whose full name I have never known, is still looking good but is past its very best. It catches the early morning light and I have tried to get that with my new camera. I reckon it does a better job than the old one but it’s still not the same as being there.

Four.
For very many years we have had a hydrangea kicking about in a pot and labelled ‘Jim’s unknown hydrangea’. I think we once planted it out and it succumbed to honey fungus but Sue always had one or two small plants that she had propagated. I must have had it since before I “retired”, so pre 2014. In a pot it always flowered white with a pink margin. It’s quite a big and wayward grower so there always seemed to be something ahead in the queue when a planting space became available. I’m pretty sure I’m correct in saying that it was the original wild collected form of Hydrangea serrata from which all the many subsequent ‘improved’ plants with that colouring derive. That would make it Hydrangea serrata ‘Kiyosumi’. I planted it out last year and it’s flowering. It’s not white with a pink margin, but then it wouldn’t be in our soil. Its growth habit will be the giveaway in a year or two. It’s a keeper, whatever it is. I have a hunch it may be ‘Tiara’, another serrata variety we had a big plant of that I gave away. I need to pay it a visit.

Five.
In July 2024 I sowed seed of Michauxia campanuloides. A sixer had posted a picture of it, almost certainly around this time of year, and there it was, in Plant World Seeds list. They describe it as “one of the world’s most astonishing and spectacular flowers’ … ‘this arrestingly beautiful plant’….. It’s nice but I doubt very much I’ll grow it again. It’s taken two years to flower and is quite hard to spot from a distance.

Six.
Two weeks ago I included a Hemerocallis that was looking so bad I was wondering why I grew it at all. Whatever was responsible for its overwhelmingly dull floral display has gone. I now know why I grow it but I still can’t find a label on it. Looking back through old SoS posts it appears to be ‘Bela Lugosi’. It’s not rubbish at all, quite the reverse.

I just went to check on my camera slow-mo and the battery had gone flat. Not that it mattered, the buds had barely started to open and it’s now too dark. Back to the drawing board. Have a good gardening week.