Six on Saturday - 26 July 2025

Whilst still suffering from a lack of adequate rain, I am focusing this week on some pleasing aspects of my gardening.  Over at Jim's blog called 'Garden Ruminations' you will find more than just my post, providing an insight into gardens and gardeners, plants and possibly also weather. 

1. How could I not start this Six on Saturday but with this luscious plant:

Looks like it might be Canna 'Tropicanna'.  After only one month its first ripe mango/papaya coloured blooms are charming me.  For a while all the plants in pots along the shed side of the large gravel, size of the gravel, not the area, have been moved together whilst the shed is having a full refurbish. I am certainly enjoying veering off my usual pallet towards warmer richer colours for the summer.

2. On our date day out yesterday, we had a little detour for lunch and a mooch around Sherborne Garden Centre, and how could I not be tempted by a few plants.  With several large empty pots back home, I took advantage of a late season sale of two for one and bought two Begonia 'Bossa Nova Night Fever Papaya'. at first my eye was taken by the contrast of the dark foliage and the bright flowers when someone at the till was buying some.  I had to go back of course to get them: two for £3.99 was a definite bargain . Two Thunbergia 'Sun Eyes Terracotta' again £3.99, which I had to earn by disentangling them, I felt would look good growing in the same up up some old sticks that I had used last year and bound at the top with some copper wire.  I am hoping that like the Canna, given a month, they will be putting on a good show:

3.  And just because I had seen them growing on Tresco, I also picked up a couple of Lotus Berthelotti Orange, two for £2.75. I have since read that it needs a cooling period before flowering, so these went in together in my precious Whichford Pottery bowl, and hopefully after a winter in the conservatory they will flower well again next year, even if they don't this year. Usually plants at this time of the year in garden centres are in a poor state but the care and attention which the dedicated staff give to watering etc., means that the nursery is still well worth visiting.

I decided it was too hot to put the order in the car, whilst we parked up and had a couple of hours in Sherborne, so had them hold my order, and returned later. 

4. The cuttings of Phlox bifida 'Alba' which I took a few weeks ago looked ready to be potted up again, so whilst I was potting up the plants mentioned earlier, these got planted in a half pot ready to pass the winter and later make a show next spring for one of the tables.

5. I took this White Pelargonium 'New Century White' which I was given as a plug by the gardening club to grow on, for our Gardening Summer Party competition, 10 days ago.  After this it stood on a pedestal by the front door, but it proved a little too hot there, so it has been moved to the back garden.  Some of the flowers have started to grow seed capsules, so one of my tasks later will be to take my fine nosed snips and remove these. It will probably entail removing entire heads as well, to allow the plant to develop more blooms. It won second prize, but the judge was a non gardener who even had to ask the name of the plants. My consolation was that I heard several people mutter under their breath that mine was the most tricky of the plants to grow and even the finest plant overall!  The judge probably just didn't like geraniums or white flowers.  But being a good looser is realising that everything is 'In the eye of the Judge'!

White Pelargonium  'New Century White'

6. Origanum Buckland is still quite small.  It has been moved and hopefully having a little space to itself in the middle of the gravel garden will suit it.  It has of course been struggling, but hopefully it will soon get its roots down in its new situation and flourish next year. I bought it in 2021 from Pottertons.

I can't find much about this cultivar except that it is probably a hybrid between O dictamnus and O. amanum with the branched hairs of the former but the intermediate in floral characters. I have O dictamnus close by but have yet to acquire O amanum, which seems elusive at its best. Should anyone be able to source or share same Origanum amanum with me, I would love to have it and if I have something in the garden to share, let me know.