From the garden on 8 November 2025

 This is the usual Six things from the Garden: a meme called SOS which links us all to Jim's post

Each week I wonder whether I'll have anything worth writing about the following week and I surprise myself.  

1. This has to be the best hardy Chrysanthemum in the garden this week.  It has stood all the various storms and droughts, since 2021 when I received this from Brenda.

Chrysanthemum Hillside Apricot

I was delighted when a friend who is a very good gardener dropped by this week.  I was able to share the garden with her, pointing out the various plants she had given me, and she was very taken with this Chrysanthemum Hillside Apricot, so that will be divisions made next spring when the new shoots start to appear. These give so many cut flower stems that I was able to send her home with a few with no visible depletion. If you are trying to guess where I cut them from, it was from the other large clump on the other side of the garden, 

2. There is only one Alstromeria in the garden, to be truthful it is in a pot rather than in the ground, and it is still flowering.

Alstromeria Indian Summer

I last divided it in 2022 and it is ready for that, though I have read that this is a job best done in the spring.  I've been moving my large pots around and I almost used one in which I was intending planting half of this clump, and stopped just in time. Diving this next year in 2026 means that it will have been in the pot for four years.  I think in future I shall make this a 3 yearly job.

3. Another plant that is sorely in need of division/repotting are the  Hakonechloa Macra Aureola.  They are now so pot bound, that the water just runs off the top of the pots.  I have read that early in the new year just as the shoots are emerging is the best time for this job.

Hakonechloa Macra Aureola 

There are two large pots each side of the bench.

4. Yellow in the garden, but only until the frost bites!  It was strange that the hot dry weather really did not suit the nasturtiums.  This is a self seeded one trying desperately to set seed before the end of the season.

5. I was actually not so very impressed by this little white Pelargonium recently, was it because it was overshadowed by everything else in the garden?  It was however the only small pot of flower, and a little bit of a preen involving removed spent flowers, and yellowing or nibbled leaves has restored it to a reasonable specimen rather than an eyesore to look at from the kitchen window. I may well keep this one, and take a few cuttings early in the new year. (*)

 

White Pelargonium 'New Century White'

6. The tall unknown variety of Cosmos have finally come into flower, so all the colours have been revealed.  During the winds this week I lost the very tallest comos with the largest blooms of the conservatory bed cosmos, but I was able to cut the flowers. I think the height and the large size of the blooms were its downfall in that they caught the wind so badly.  It is nice to see a white one amongst those growing in the old vegetable border.

This Six on Saturday of course it not about anything like keeping up with 'The Jones'.  You should see the other posts...fab photographs, plants and plantman/womanship which I can only but learn from, or at the very least admire.  I like it not only because of being able to read several other posts but to keep a record of my garden: how I like to grow things, and what may have been inspiring me to try different things.  Of course there is the repeat factor which is as much about celebrating how well old favourites are doing, and reminding me of cultivation needs and jobs.

(*) When looking up about this Pelargonium I came across an interesting concept: that of physiological aging in plants made me realise that by propagation from cutting or division over many years  means that my new perennial plant is similar to a 50 year old plant. Whereas of course grown from seed a plant is brand new. I found it here a little down the article under the heading What were the problems with old geranium varieties?