Six on Saturday – 24/10/2026 – garden ruminations

Storm Austen is very slowly blowing itself out. It dropped 40mm of rain and blew gusts of around 60mph which have had me pretty worried for our one big tree. It’s all looking very windswept but essentially intact out there. Not that I’ve been out there much, it’s 11°C and feels like much less. It looks like tomorrow will deliver even more rain and wind so maybe the water levels in the local reservoirs will start to go up sometime soon. Our nearest big one is at 31.6%, lower than last year but considerably higher than 2022. My planned water works are on hold as the tank supplier is fielding record orders, hardly a surprise.

Enough of the good news, Six on Saturday beckons and I’ve pulled together another mixed bag of goodies. Join us if you’re able, it’s very simple. Just post a picture or two of six things happening in or related to your garden this Saturday and put a link to your post in my comments below. Right, let’s get cracking.

One.
I’m not much of a shopper and as a consequence, visits to nurseries and garden centres and plant fairs and open gardens with plant sales and plant websites account for a significant share of my retail diet. This year the purchases haven’t seemed many but have slowly accumulated as growing conditions and other excuses have prevented me planting them. Look at this lot, not all of them by any means; I’m almost embarrassed.

Someone is bound to ask what the one 4th from the right is so let me give you a L to R list.
Hedychium coccineum ‘Hungphong Stripe’
Panicum virgatum ‘Blue Fountain’
Zingiber mioga ‘White Feather’
Pseudopanax lessonii ‘Atropurpurea’
Eucomis ‘Purple Reign’
Pseudowintera colorata ‘Red Leopard’
Cordyline australis ‘Salsa’
Hosta ‘Queen Josephine’
Hosta ‘Rainbow’s End’
Fatsia polycarpa ‘Needham’s Lace’

Two.
Nor does that little lot include perhaps the greatest indulgences of all my 2026 purchases, which would have to include the three Nerines I have on order from Cotswold Garden Flowers and this Lapageria rosea, purchased from Treseder’s Nursery near here. He had a big batch of seed raised plants, all subtly different, and I was torn between going for the strongest looking plant or the flower that most pleased my eye. The latter won, probably a mistake.

Three.
Swansong time for the Dahlias and a picture taken on Wednesday in anticipation of today’s boisterous weather. Actually, they are sheltered from the worst of the wind and have held up tolerably well.

Four.
I planted a hanging basket with a few bits and bobs and hung it up to burn in the summer heat. Needing an extra plant I put one of the chlorophytums we had kicking about into the mix. There is now no sign there was ever anything else in the basket, other than its lopsidedness. Three Chlorophytums next year I’m thinking.

Five.
Camellia sasanqua is an autumn flowering Camellia species and ‘Navajo’ is a variety that Nuccio’s Nursery in Altadena, California, brought in from Japan but lost the name of. They named it ‘Navajo’ but the same variety is almost certainly being grown in Japan under its original name. My plant is in full sun at the front of the house, a position that has always served it well such that it has produced a great flower display every year for many years. It evidently got too dry this year and there are not many buds and the first flowers are smaller than usual. Oddly, the first buds to open are always the ones facing the wall of the house, that is the north facing ones. I took this one’s photo through the window and it is lit up by sunlight reflected from the glass.

Six.
In the conservatory/lean to greenhouse at the back of the house is a Nerine ‘Zeal Giant’, in flower. It’s enormous, 90cm tall with flower heads 20cm wide. Given its size I was wondering if it might be a hybrid with Amaryllis but apparently it is not. It was raised in Devon by Terry Jones using pollen from N. sarniensis ‘Hera’ on a good N. bowdenii form.