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.
garden ruminations 
Lilium ‘Fusion’ and Hemerocallis ‘Bela Lugosi’ win the show prize for me. I have an Oreo neighbor’s cat that visits me when I am out in the garden. She is silent.
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I think the cat is making the universal cry for breakfast! Mine starts pestering me while I am still trying to sleep, but she is terrified of the outdoors, so no faces at the window. We are about to move into a heat wave, and my husband took out one of my rain barrels with the lawn mower. He hit the spigot once before and I used epoxy to seal it. This time it was a fatal blow, and me running back and forth with my bucket to at least distribute the water wher it is wanted. Then we got some beautiful rain but the new barrel had not arrived. We will get it set up today so it is ready next time riain comes through. I am getting some colors other than green and beginning to see insects, which makes me happy. Lovely selections as usual! Here are mine:
https://wisconsingarden.wordpress.com/2026/06/27/june-27-2026-six-on-saturday/
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Hi Jim, looking at the birds eye view of your garden I am struck that you don’t have any lawn, sitting area and there is not an inch of garden unplanted. It looks fantastic!
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Lilium ‘Fusion’ is eye catching, Jim. Will it grow in a pot?
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A lovely hydrangea, it works so well with the fuchsia in the background. The day lily is a stunner. It’s a struggle to time thinks for open days, I have a lily that I nearly always miss due to holidays. I just caught it this year https://n20gardener.com/2026/06/27/six-on-saturday-scorchio-2/ . Your lily and the watsonia are a great combination.
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That’s a great cat pic! You can just hear her demand!
Lovely Hemerocallis. I have a new, undetermined one from an open garden that is likely going to flower in the next week – hopefully it will be as attractive at yours (but I rather think it may be plain orange).
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That bela legosi – wow! A flower that really Counts (I’m not sure that joke really works, but my brain is still rebooting from the week we’ve had) https://potsandplots.blog/2026/06/27/sixonsaturday-27-06-2026/
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I too am very taken with your Watsonia and lily combination, quite spectacular, I’m sure your visitors were impressed. Also like your hydrangea very much, definitely a keeper!
My six are here………https://www.leadupthegardenpath.com
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the Lilium ‘Fusion’ is a stunner as is the Hemerocallis. I’ve never come across a red, or is it vermillion, Watsonia before. It makes me think of the Montbretia we have growing throughout our creek and which my husband has taken great lengths to eradicate. Someone gave me one in a pot last year “for our garden”. John was horrified. It’s a very pretty plant but I could not plant one in the garden….I would never hear the end of it.
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The Lilium and the Hemerocallis are quite spectacular. Your next visitors have so many beautiful things to enjoy. What a treasure your garden is. I must look for one to visit regularly here, but I doubt there would be anything as good. Gardens change almost weekly.
Here are my six:
https://noellemace.blogspot.com/2026/06/six-on-saturday-through-heat-and.html
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Oh, I do like that Watsonia. I just planted my first three. Two are from Tangly Cottage Gardening. One is corral, and another is orange with red. I do not know what the third one is, but I think it is salmon pink. I hope to someday acquire a white one. Your variegated Yucca gloriosa is bigger than I remember it. Anyway, these are my six. https://tonytomeo.com/2026/06/27/six-on-saturday-fowler/
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Wow to the ‘Fusion’ and Watsonia – a spectacular show. The cat looks fierce in that photo! https://onemanandhisgardentrowel.wordpress.com/2026/06/27/six-on-saturday-27-june-2026/
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The 2 orange flowers of the week are very lovely – the Lilium and the Watsonia. Is that Lilium in a pot? https://fredgardenerblog2.wordpress.com/2026/06/27/six-on-saturday-27-06-26/
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Hello! Happy weekend everyone. 🙂 Your garden buddy is so cute – in a menacing kind of way 😀
I love the Lily / Watsonia combo, they’re both very striking. As is the Bela Lugosi, wow! I’m waiting for my Crocosmia to start blooming, they should have similar colour tones to your Fusion Lily. I can’t wait.
I skipped last week, unintentionally. It was one of those weeks where one thing after another went wrong and despite having written the whole post for last Saturday, everything else went wrong and I was unable to publish it. So it’s been updated and completed for this week.
Wishing everybody a cool and comfortable weekend. We’re cooking here in France, and of course our AC is out of order…
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