July 2013 in the Northern Hemisphere

[Knud]

Paul & Knud, I grow it in a pot, I think it will be cold hardy but not sure about summer wet. The problem here though is more likely to be slugs - I even have issues with them going for it in the greenhouse. The flowers have an odd texture, almost like glass!

Thank you, Mark, for this information. Slugs would certainly be a challenge here.

Knud

[Mark Griffiths]

Lesley and Paul, I got the Stachys from Mike Smith, Hythe Alpines..it's supposed to be a particularly good form.

I have a couple - I find that even if there are shoots on the flowering stems they always die and I've started to cut them back hard after flowering. That usually means I have one nice compact plant and one straggly or bare stump of a plant.

I also grew S. candidida but that went the way of all flesh at some point.

Edit by maggi to add comment from Tim, from  post of his moved to new thread:

Mark - really interesting to see Stachys chrysantha as I have tended to confuse the name with S. citrina. I like all of these small species very much and the latter does well on the sand bed with us.

[johnralphcarpenter]

Definitely not glacial: Dahlia australis.

[PaulM]

What a nice Dahlia ! Is that a true species, or a cultivar ?

[Lesley Cox]

Stachys citrina is a beauty Tim. I really like these smaller Lamiaceae. The 3 stachys mentioned above are all easy enough from seed but when I had them, I found cuttings were difficult, I think because of the extreme hairiness/woolliness of the stems. And within Lamiaceae, the stems seems to narrow down to the nodes and don't act like a regular stem from a sturdier plant. They are very brittle.

Do Hythe Alpines do any seed please? We can't get plants from overseas.

[Lesley Cox]

Thank you for the polar bear link Trond. I'll have to learn some Norwegian. The image of the cub suckling was especially nice. While the mothers can go without eating for very long periods, it seems they will even starve and use up their own muscle mass in order to keep producing milk for their young. Of course they one of the most dangerous animals on the planet yet they are totally endearing.

[Tim Ingram]

Lesley - unfortunately Mike and Dot Smith (Hythe Alpines) closed their nursery some years ago and I don't know how much they have continued growing such choice plants (I wish I had bought this one from them). There are not too many growers around who propagated such a choice range of plants.

[johnralphcarpenter]

What a nice Dahlia ! Is that a true species, or a cultivar ?

It's a species. Got it from Great Dixter Nursery. Flowers at about 2m. tall.

[krisderaeymaeker]

Thanks for the information Lori , interesting.

Something from warmer places .... Pelargonium endlicherianum ....

[krisderaeymaeker]

Cyananthus lobatus x microphyllus 'Sherriffs '

[ranunculus]

Beautiful.

[Helen Johnstone]

This weeks starts of the garden

Allium cernuum
Geranium 'victor reiter'
Watsonia - unknown variety, grown from seed about 4 years ago, label lost.  Planted out in the garden for the first time this year, hope its hardy

[astragalus]

These pictures were taken on a wonderful day in the Dolomites when we had to cross a lot of snow to get to an interesting steep scree that looked almost empty.  Up close we found wonderful plants from top to bottom a distance.  On the way we passed huge rocks, each one of them a garden.

    Heading for the scree
    Geum reptans
    DSC08151 Saxifraga

[astragalus]

More plants along the way.

    DSC08163 - Eritrichium
    DSC08185 - Silene acaulis
    DSC08201 - Eritrichium nanum
    DSC08207 - Eritrichium nanum

[astragalus]

At the bottom of the scree.  I was stuck on the Sax. I,d, and Cliff came to my rescue after consultation with David Charlton.  I've never seen it before and there was quite a bit of it on the lower quarter of the scree, very pretty.

    DSC08213 - Soldanella pusilla habitat
    DSC08226 -  Soldanella pusilla
    DSC08216 -  Saxifraga adscendans