Six on Saturday – 14/11/2026

It fair takes my breath away how fast these posts come round. What on earth have I done since the last one? I’m back on the Camellia trail, visiting the National collection, updating records, sorting photos, processing video. Indoors, sat at a computer, not out in the garden where it’s cold. We had our first real frost last night; the Dahlias and Cannas are black, Plectranthus and Impatiens are toast. I think all my heaters came on as intended so everything that had been moved inside was protected. Given the forecast, I took a few pictures earlier in the week, though today was a lovey day so I probably needn’t have bothered.

All the same, the six on Saturday challenge is getting harder, so if you’re up for it, post pictures of six things in your garden and put a link in my comments below and that’s it, you’re part of the gang. There’s a fuller explanation here.

One.
Frost. Lets get it done, the required frosty picture. Stachys macrantha ‘Superba Frostii’. Was it really that colour? Probably not, more pink, but that’s missing the point.

Two.
Acer ‘Orange Dream’ is making a bit of an effort at producing some autumn colour. New England it ain’t, but beggars can’t be choosers. I’ve been pushing the canopy on this up so it doesn’t block my eyeline, perhaps if I’d delayed the haircut I gave it a few weeks back I’d have had a better display.

Three.
I think I may have already put in Clematis cirrhosa ‘Wisley Cream’ a few weeks back but it is putting on quite a show so I’m giving it another go. The trellis it is on is collapsing under it so something drastic has to happen at some point.

Four.
Hydrangea macrophylla ‘You and Me Together’ usually flowers a respectable blue with purplish undertones. This year it was pushing against more heat than it could cope with and the flowers were a washed out and somewhat shrivelled pinky purple from the start. I just left them there and now they really don’t look too bad. The flower heads are now constantly moist, which has intensified their colour, and everything around has come down to their level of floral intensity. The flower heads are in remarkably good condition considering they were produced in June/July and it’s now November.

Five.
Hakonechloa macra ‘All Gold’ doesn’t have the resilience of some of the other forms of Hakone grass I have, the best of which will stay in good condition until the end of February. It’s looking pretty good now though, so deserves an SoS mention.

Six.
I moved a fair number of borderline plants into my various glasshouses earlier in the week, amongst them a number of Sue’s succulents that went into her glasshouse. These two are Agave lophantha ‘Quadricolor’ and Mangave ‘Lavender Lady’. I cleaned them up, removing all the hibernating snails hiding under the leaves, and moved them in. I took a picture of them in the glasshouse but not wanting to be pulled up by any electricians on here who might not approve of my heating arrangements, I shall leave that bit to your imagination. I shall now brush past the two plants all winter, being mauled by the Agave and breaking the leaves of the Mangave by the air movement of my passing.

As I mentioned at the top, I’ve been getting back into my support role for the National Collection of Camellias at Mount Edgcumbe in Cornwall, having effectively taken a year out. Not for the first time I have embarked on trying to build a set of videos about the collection, hoping that one day they will get them, or links to them, on their own website. When it comes to producing videos, I’m an old dog and I’m slow to pick up new tricks. The technology frequently trips me up and my shaky hands combined with the near constant wind up there means things move that shouldn’t. Audio defeated me this time around, though I think I have it mastered now. Anyhow, here’s a link to 14 minutes and 5 seconds of autumn flowering Camellias, with no soundtrack. https://youtu.be/7wIalH0s5Ww