Six on Saturday – 6/5/2023

Categories six on saturday61 Comments on Six on Saturday – 6/5/2023

Lighter evenings are supposed to give us more usable time but I feel I’m running to stand still at the moment. I can’t believe how quickly these Saturdays come around. It’s all growing like mad out there, Dahlias, Salvias and Cannas all coming up. Slug, weevil and lily beetle patrols will be routine until things are big enough to bear a bit of damage. I’m getting some help, of which more in a moment.
I think I read somewhere that the automatic Twitter link will no longer work; I may do it manually if I’m up at a sensible time. It’s still let me set it up, so fingers crossed.
To business then; six items from your garden on a Saturday is the brief, interpreted very loosely by some. Post them on a blog or Tweet or whatever and put in a link to them in the comments below. Simple.

One.
I don’t see hedgehogs every evening when I’m out slugging, and I hear them more often than I see them. They’re out there somewhere though, so even though this picture was taken last Sunday I feel it illustrates something that almost certainly will happen at some point this Saturday as well. There were three but by the time I’d gone for my camera one had moved off.


Two.
Today (Friday) it was the turn of a blue tit to do some voluntary pest control. He came into the conservatory and spent 20 minutes or so searching for, and finding, things to eat. Warmer, dryer and richer pickings than outdoors to be sure.

Three.
Rhododendron with no name. A seedling I raised from seed collected from R. atlanticum except it was probably a hybrid of some sort and then hybridised again with who knows what to give me two quite different seedlings. This is much the better of the two and as well as being pretty, it has a wonderful scent that is almost as good as its parent.


Four.
I don’t even try to grow Hostas in the ground, it’s hard enough to keep them from getting shredded in pots. ‘Devon Green’ is just one of many that I grow and as the name implies, it’s plain green. It is also in my experience, relatively unattractive to the slimy assassins.


Five.
When I did the new length of fence in the top corner a couple of years back, I planted two Clematis montana varieties to cover the fence. They did what Clematis always do, went straight to the top, refused to be coaxed to cover our side of the fence, and flowered all along the top of the fence, and for all I know, down the other side. It’s the variety ‘Warwickshire Rose’, which I may have chosen for the dark foliage, or strong pink colour, or comparatively moderate growth. There was a reason, there’s always a reason, I just don’t remember what it it was. It looks set fair to give our neighbours years of pleasure.


Six.
The number six dilemma is a very real thing at this time of year. I have pictures of Holboellia, Asphodelus, Hepatica, Lamium orvala, bluebells and campion. Enough for another six. Instead you’re going to get Gladiolus tristis, a volunteer that came with an Agapanthus and good enough for me to have bought and planted a group somewhere else as well. This, the volunteer, looks to be a better form. Night scented and seemingly, reliably perennial. Chionochloa rubra is providing physical and visual support.

And that once again, is yer lot. The weekend weather looks pretty ropey but there’s nothing else on so I’m hoping to get a fair bit of gardening done. Our first garden visit, a garden club, is on June 12th. Loads of time to lick it into shape. Have a good weekend.

Published by Jim Stephens

Gardener, no-dig allotmenteer, camellia enthusiast. I love colour, it cheers me up. Retired nurseryman.

61 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – 6/5/2023”

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  4. We’ve had blue tits in the greenhouse too, finding things to eat, although I think they may pecked a bit of dahlia foliage too. Sadly we also had a dead goldcrest that had flown into the glass – such a tiny little thing. It’s far too wet here for any gardening and I had to wait til late yesterday afternoon to get into the garden to take a few photos but, better late than never – here they are:
    https://junegirvin.substack.com/p/coronations-coronilla-and-contrasts

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  6. Pingback: Six on Saturday; A Virtual Tour | Cosmos and Cleome

  10. Oh, I do wish that hedgehogs would make their way here. I haven’t seen one in years. Beautiful photos of the Blue Tit, it is such a pretty bird I think. It’s been a funny week here, lots of fog and then hazy sunshine, cold at night, but pleasantly warm when the sun shines, but I am still suffering with the joints and mowing my tiny bit of lawn had me deeply regretting it the following day.

    Six on Saturday | Coronation Saturday

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  12. You’ve just sent Gladiolus tristis shooting up near the top of my wishlist, Jim. I’ve been wanting to try species glads anyway…
    And your rhododendron is fabulous though of course not on my list–but what a beautiful thing!
    I admit to mangling the number six this week. I began well, but the roses definitely got the better of me! Here we go: https://smallsunnygarden.substack.com/p/beneath-a-blue-sky

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  17. Pingback: Six on Saturday: Clumps | Rambling in the Garden

  19. Good morning all! I am surprised about the Hostas. In Wisconsin they are indestructible, everyone tries to give them away. I have one, but don’t love them. My one came with the house and grows next to the garage. But better still, the hedgehogs! They are so adorable and I wish they were native here as well. Color is returning to WI. I have yet to see a hummingbird, but I caught a finch drinking from the ant moat.

    https://wisconsingarden.wordpress.com/2023/05/06/may-6-2023-six-on-saturday/

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    1. Hostas are very prone to slug damage here and there’s a perverse pleasure in rising to the challenge of growing them well. Hedgehogs manage to be rather endearing in spite of being flea ridden, eating slugs and mating noisily under your window at night; quite an achievement.

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      1. Well, if hedgehogs eat slugs, that is a plus! They are cute. I had a opossum in my garden last year – it hissed at me and ran off. They look like giant rats.

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      3. Australia gets all the marsupials! We only have the one Why they spell is with a silent O, I have no idea. Not the cutest marsupial, but there you go, When I was a teenager, we had so many fat ones, they ate the windfall avocados.

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  21. I confess that I am one of those for whom the dictum six items from a Saturday morning is interpreted loosely but I do have six.
    It is beautiful spring weather here in the American South and the garden is advancing rapidly and seems to be repairing the damage from the ravages of this past winter.
    I hope to catch some of the pageantry of the coronation. I recorded it since it began a little early here.
    Here are my efforts for the week. Hope your garden brings you pleasure.

    https://mensgardenvestavia.wordpress.com/2023/05/05/it-is-spring-5-may-2023/

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    1. Now there’s a challenge. After I came rushing back in for the camera to take their picture, I thought I should take my phone out with me when I go out at night to photograph them, now I have the additional project of recording them. It’ll be easier than describing it.

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    1. The original Gladiolus tristis is better than ever today, but still only one flower spike, same as last year. I don’t think it set seed last year, perhaps it will this, I’d very much like to build up the numbers of it.

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  24. Pingback: Six on Saturday: 6 May 2023 – My Tiny Welsh Garden

  26. Devon Green is a great hosta and has been on my list for a while but as you say it’s a battle to keep hostas from being shredded. Interesting to hear that they might be more resistant. Very envious of your hedgehogs, they look a good size!

    Like you I can’t auto share to twitter anymore but I did manage to paste my link into a tweet.
    We struggle on! Here’s my link to a bit of red white and blue plus some onions! https://n20gardener.com/2023/05/06/six-on-saturday-8/

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  27. Pingback: Six On Saturday: | n20gardener
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  33. Your lovely little Blue Tit looks as though he’s saying to you, “Get that camera out of my face”. Nice to see that it’s comfortable enough to join you indoors. I keep wishing a hedgehog or two would visit my garden, but so far, I have none.
    I’ve made a note of hosta ‘Devon Green’. If snails & slugs don’t like them, perhaps that’s a variety I need to have here. 🙂
    Beautiful Clematis – mine goes over the fence too, but we have only the cows in the field to enjoy them. Such a waste. Here are my six for this week:

    The Crab Apple v The Wind

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    1. The more comments I read from people who’ve not seen a hedgehog in ages, the luckier I feel. We have had them in the garden as long as we’ve been here, often hibernating too. They must range far wider than our fairly small garden and in a housing estate they must encounter so many hazards, but they’re still around.

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  34. Snap! I feature Devon Green this week, too, it was looking stunning at RHS Bridgewater which is where most of my SoS entry is from today. I think I can safely say my interpretation of “six” is very loose this week, I hope you’ll forgive me just this once:-)
    Wonderful pics of the hedgehog & especially the blue tit.
    My contribution this week is here: https://mysanctuarygarden.wordpress.com/2023/05/06/six-on-saturday-06-05-23/

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  35. Six on Saturday: State Flowers


    These are my Six on Saturday.
    Gladiolus tristis is supposedly naturalized in Monterey County just south of here. I have not yet seen it. I would like to find some of the feral sort that I can dig copies of. Since I know that it performs well here, I would not object to purchasing a garden variety of it if I happened to find it available from a nursery. I already grow two species that are very reliably perennial, and potentially invasive, and I am very fond of both of them.
    Clematis of all sorts are so predictable that I no longer expect them to cover anything. They just grow on top, and that is just splendid.
    Hedgehogs still look scary!

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    1. Gladiolus tristis is on Silverhill’s seed list, with colour that mine don’t have. I was contemplating an order because there was something else I wanted, but I’ve now forgotten what it was. Out of flower it would be very hard to spot, very grass like leaves.

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      1. Yes, that is the impression I get from Gladiolus papilio and Gladiolus murielae. I would like to put some of the Gladiolus papilio into mixed wildflowers because it looks like a wildflower.

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      2. I have a potful of seedlings of G. papilio ‘Ruby’, which has produced a few interesting colour variants in the past. The species spreads rapidly in my garden, by runners presumably, but very rarely flowers. I’d be very happy to have a naturalised population with a bit of colour variation if they flowered reasonably well.

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      3. I think of it as an ornamental grass that sometimes blooms like a miniature gladiolus. However, it does not exactly look like a neat ornamental grass either. I like it regardless, just because it is a simple species of Gladiolus. Do you think that variations of bloom color seem to be a bit unnatural for a naturalized colony, or is that even important?

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    1. I am still seeing a message saying I do no have access to this document! I will investigate. But I did enjoy the red white and blue and hope you had a lovely weekend, despite Saturday’s weather!

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