Six on Saturday – 7/11/2026

It’s getting steadily colder, especially at night, but still not low enough for frost, so while the garden is wind battered it is still mostly alive and kicking. As ever, I will only be bounced into moving stuff under cover and setting up heaters when frost is imminent. I have to admit I’m a little less keen to get out there in the cold and wet with every year that passes so not much has been done, and while there is less urgency about it when it’s all moving so slowly, I really should be getting out the things that need getting out and planting as much as possible of my new stuff. Perhaps more than ever, with hotter, dryer summers becoming the norm, autumn planting is a good idea.

I went out this morning in gloomy light under thick cloud and took some pictures, then seemed to be too busy to repeat any of them when it brightened up. I’ll Photoshop them if they’re too dull. Six items of interest in the garden this Saturday, that’s the Six on Saturday brief; please join in if you can come up with that, post your post, put a link to it in my comments below. Read the participants guide if you want to know more. Right, what’s on the menu?

One.
My “things to come out” list includes a few fuchsias, as it has every year for the past several. Gall mite is working its way through them inexorably. Fuchsia ‘Rading’s Karin’ has so far been unaffected, along with the other encliandra section varieties we still have. It’s a hybrid of F. x bacillaris with scarlet flowers rather than the usual vivid pink, but still with tiny flowers in profusion, especially late in the year. It’s upright growing when it gets going but young plants like this one tend to sprawl about somewhat.

Two.
Musa sikkimensis ‘Bengal Tiger’ is coming into its third, maybe even forth winter in the ground. It seems to be hardy for me even without protection and is getting bigger each year even though it dies back almost entirely in the winter. The recent gales have left it looking tatty but hardly less impressive. It coped with the dry summer very much better than the Canna tuerkheimii alongside it, which I suppose shouldn’t be much of a surprise.

Three.
Salvia ‘Indigo Spires’ takes the crown for last man standing among my Salvias. The others are standing but they’re not doing much. Last man standing isn’t an apt description either since for the most part it’s lying down, but it’s still flowering well, which is what really counts. Looking at the picture more closely I see that Salvia ‘Amistad’ is very much in the mix as well.

Four.
Among the plants that need getting under cover for winter are Sues collection of Mangaves. I have to confess that I have dumped a couple of them that were underperforming and at least one duplicate. They are not slow growers and every year lugging them up to my allotment tunnel becomes a less attractive prospect but it’s the only place there’s likely to be space. The good ones really are making fine specimens now, which at least provides the necessary motivation to look after them well. Not only are they heavy, they are absurdly brittle. This one is ‘Snow Leopard’ I think, I couldn’t find a label.

Five.
Our Hardy Plant Society meeting this month had Charlie Pridham, holder of a national collection of Clematis viticella varieties, as speaker. He was talking about the range of climbing plants he grows at Roseland House Garden and Nursery and mentioned Parthenocissus henryana in passing as a plant with interestingly marked foliage, even in shade. My reaction was “we used to have that, wonder if it’s still there”. It is, just. It featured in a 2017 six, its only outing, when it was much bigger and displaying good autumn colour.

Six.
I suppose it’s a sign of the times and a not altogether welcome one that this is the third time this year that I have seen fit to put Yucca gloriosa ‘Variegata’ into a six. I am not fond of tangling with it so the nine dead flower spikes from August are still there and there are nine new spikes coming up now, in November, to join them. There’s also just one flowering now. Pretty good value I have to say.

We have 3°C forecast for tonight and tomorrow night, a bit close for comfort with quite a few tender plants still knocking about outside. It’d be a mercy if it took out the Dahlias, they’re looking terrible after the storms. It’s then due to get a little milder again so I can resume my procrastination regarding getting things in. Have a good week.