Flowers and foliage January 2008

[Maggi Young]

Anthony, your orchids are looking  very healthy 
John, what a nice selection... great colours in these (for most of us) very dull days!

[Anthony Darby]

John Cyclamen alpinum is the 'new' (old? correct?) name for trochopteranthum.

[Tim Murphy]

John's cylamen alpina or is it trocoptheranum? reminded me to take a picture of my own trocopterhanum album.Rod Leeds spotted this when visitiing my garden with a snowdrop group about 3yrs ago and told me that the album form was quite rare.Can anyone confirm that this is the case?

John, although C. alpinum forma Leucanthum is likely to be in the collection of most hardcore cyclamen enthusiasts, it's not a particularly easy plant to get hold of in any numbers or from all that many sources, so yes, it is quite rare. The problem I have found with my own stock plants of alpinum f. Leucanthum is that a very small proportion of seedlings come true, even when the parent plants are kept together but away from normal forms of alpinum.

[Carlo]

John,

It would be Cyclamen trochopteranthum (note spelling) which is now a synonym of C. alpinum (if the chaps in England are to be believed--I still like the old name myself...)

[Tim Murphy]

Only one chap was responsible for the name change, Carlo... C G-W.

[Maggi Young]

I still like the old name myself

Me too and it's fun to tell children about the name and show them why it is relevant.
Also, it always reminds me of how our nephew used to talk of his passion for "helicopeters".... we still call them that! Oh, and another of his words "tangerIan"... yes, Cyclamen trochopteranthum is good enough for me

Only one chap was responsible for the name change, Carlo... C G-W.

Yes, indeedy

[Lesley Cox]

John,

It would be Cyclamen trochopteranthum (note spelling) which is now a synonym of C. alpinum (if the chaps in England are to be believed--I still like the old name myself...)

I like trochopteranthum myself. One sounds so clever when pronouncing it.

[Tony Willis]

You can not sell a book unless you have something new to say!

[John Forrest]

Thankfully the water is back on in the house and the water in the garden has subsided. We are half way down a gentle sloping hill and so the water seeps onwards to the next garden and the cold frame emptied in about 24 hours. One redeeming feature of the flooded frames was all the small black keel slugs laying drowned when the water subside.
Teasel thought the puddles were great fun and even more so managing to wipe her paws on my trousers, whilst trying to encourage me to throw her toy to retrieve. I won't bother you with my comments to her!!!
Yesterday began with frost and the air was still so I took a picture of the Witch Hazel.
In the alpine house a nice Narcissus romieuxii which, like the Cyclamen alpinum (the label of which now bears both specific epithets, to please all our readers) was also from good old SRGC seed, sown in Jan 2005.

[Maggi Young]

JoF, what great pictures.... my yellow Hamamelis is only just showing the tiniest beginning of colour. I've never known it so late.

[annew]

It's SUNNY at last  Cool, blowing a gale as well, but caught a picture of Hamamalis 'Diane' at her best.

[Maggi Young]

Oh, yes, Anne, that is perfect with the sun showing the colour, just the best way to appreciate the flowers.

[Martin Baxendale]

With no frosts at all, my wintersweet, Chimonanthus praecox 'Luteus' is looking good - not one frosted flower. The scent is fantabulous, but a bit mixed up with fragrance of the huge (2.5m - 8ft) Daphne bholua 'Jaqueline Postill' right next to it. With these two, plus half a dozen scented winter box around the front path, and the mild weather, the walk to our front door from the road doesn't half smell nice - almost overpowering today!

[Tony Willis]

Martin the joys of living nearly in the south.The chimonanthus is wonderful.We have never had a flower in many years of growing.

[Tony Willis]

A couple of things in flower in thee greenhouse. The orchids are just starting as is the cyclamen parviflorum