Six on Saturday – 20/11/2021 – Indoors and Out

Chris Mousseau

A few tender succulents and a Eucomis that I had in pots outside all summer started to send up flower stalks in early September, just a few weeks before I brought them indoors for the winter. The Eucomis (or Pineapple Lily) – a dark leaved variety that’s had bulbs getting larger and multiplying in a not-too-large pot over the past few years – sent up five humongous flower stalks. They were erect for the first few weeks but soon fell over under the weight of the developing flowers. The other succulent started life in a small jar re-homed to me several years ago by a colleague who wasn’t confident she could keep it alive. It grew very tall and I snapped off the top and stuck it into a nice clay pot with drainage; many of the lower leaves were left in a trough to develop roots and have grown into quite large plants themselves.

I don’t know the name of this plant but I LOVE the small red flowers it’s produced.

The final four things in my garden for today’s Six on Saturday, a weekly blog theme hosted by The Propagator, were looking quite nice outside yesterday. While parts of Canada are already under many inches of snow, and other parts are under many inches of flood water, autumn so far here in my part of southeastern Ontario has been pretty perfect. Cold nights (but not too cold) and sunny (mostly) days with above freezing temperatures have meant a few extra weeks to enjoy some beautiful fall foliage.

The basal leaves of Echinacea pallida often stick around into the fall, and have a nice autumnal look.
There are a few geraniums about the garden and their leaves are either still green or have turned a lovely mottled orange.
This dwarf barberry has deep purple leaves in the summer. Before they fall off; however, the darkest pigment seems to drain from the foliage, making the leaves paler and paler until they fall.

Finally, Viburnum carlessi – Korean Spice Viburnum. I know I’ve had this before on a Saturday, but this year the leaves just keep getting more and more beautiful. I’ll be cutting buckthorn branches today to create a thorny barrier to deter rabbits and deer away from the (apparently) delicious flower buds on these – this trick worked last year so I’m hoping to repeat that success. Have a great weekend everyone!

15 Comments

  1. You are lucky where you live with the weather , seeing the hard conditions of your other compatriots… I do like these eucomis flowers that you brought indoors ( of course you can enjoy them now )

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      1. I think to see fall in your County would be worth the trip. I never knew Geraniums had such pretty fall color. I tried Eucomis in my garden – beautiful for a year or so then poof never seen again.

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      2. I would’ve thought Eucomis would do well for you…of course, if I left them in the ground they’d be mush in short order!😆 IMO the maple trees weren’t that spectacular this year, but since we’ve been getting below freezing overnights a lot of shrub foliage has been really wonderful.

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  4. I loved seeing those geranium leaves. We have a native geranium whose flowers are tiny: perhaps a quarter inch across. Long before I put two and two together, I would notice their tiny little leaves turning the same colors as yours. They were so beautiful, and finally I figured out that they were Geranium carolinianum, which manages to make it all the way to your neighborhood.</a.

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  5. The unknown succulent with unusual bloom looks like ‘Black Prince’ Echivieria. The foliage is rather blurred in the picture, and looks more like a Sempervivum to me, but the bloom looks more like that of Echivieria.

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