January 2014 in the Northern Hemisphere

[shelagh]

Thank you for the name Ashley.  The blackbirds enjoy causing havoc by flinging the labels about.

[Anne Repnow]

I don't get it, after such a mild winter I went for a walk in mt Chortiatis today in hope to find anemones, crocus, cyclamen ecc and there was nothing!
Just a promise for next time:

Maybe these plants know something we humans do not... maybe they have some inner feeling about the coming weather???

[Maggi Young]

Maybe these plants know something we humans do not... maybe they have some inner feeling about the coming weather???

  Yes, I'll bet they do!

According to this paper : Vascular Plants from Mount Chortiatis (Makedonia, Greece)
Vassiliki Karagiannakidou and Thomas Raus
Willdenowia
Bd. 25, H. 2 (Feb. 8, 1996), pp. 487-559
Published by: Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum, Berlin-Dahlem   -  where " An inventory of 1220 vascular plant taxa from Mt. Chortiatis (E of Thessaloniki, Makedonia, Greece) is presented, based on published information and on extensive recent field work. Data from widely scattered sources have been critically compiled, and numerous new records are included, thus updating a previous floristic checklist of the area published more than 50 years ago. The combination Hieracium macranthum subsp. testimoniale formed by Gottschlich is validated, and Launaea mucronata is excluded from the 'Flora europaea' area. " - it seems sensible to surmise that this lack of growth from such a wide plant population is for a very good reason 

[meanie]

A bit cheeky maybe as it's indoors, but.......................

Clerodendrum ugandense is just getting going indoors. It's about five years old now and I leave it outdoors until it has taken a couple of light frosts and then bring it indoors. Sat between the fire and the window it dumps its frosted foliage and then starts into growth again. A few weeks later it is in bloom. It gets a little leggy, but I just cut it back and use them for cuttings. I cut it back again late spring when it goes back out. Six to eight weeks later it should be in bloom again.
If I said that these blooms are about 3 or 4% of the buds it will be no exaggeration.....................


More pics as I love this plant.......................

[Brian Ellis]

Clerodendrum ugandense is just getting going indoors.

More pics as I love this plant.......................

Me too, Keith!

[fenius]

very pretty, your blue butterflies keith!
this is one of my favourites blooming today:
chaenomeles no name

and two  hybrid violas, I would never had guessed the really fragrant one would be the monster; the tiny one has no scent at all...


and the last piece of news, a strange seedling of enterolobium cyclocarpum

[Margaret]

Flowering today

Clematis napaulensis
Clematis napaulensis
Ribes laurifolium
First pulmonaria flowers

[Margaret]

also flowering

Daphne laureola philippi
Correa pulchella (?)
Anisodentea el royo (flowered all last winter too!)

[Maggi Young]

Crikey, Margaret, amazing what the heat from over 8 million people will do for a garden !  An extraordinary range of flowers outside.

[brianw]

Mr. Bigelow (spelling?) caught me out yet again. Found Scoliopus bigelowii in flower in the frame today with 5 flowers open, one with all the petals stripped by something already. See Ian's bulblog for last October for photos. S. hallii will be about a month later for me; normally.

[Margaret]

Yes, Maggi, but nearby friends' gardens are much warmer. We are windy and don't get any sun until Easter.  None of the snowdrops are open. As they were saying on the Galanthus thread they need a bit of sun to open.

[shelagh]

Hi Margaret, I think your Correa may be Dusky Maid.  We had ours for several years but the foliage always let it down.  I just love those deep pink bells in the middle of winter.

[ashley]

Hi Margaret, I think your Correa may be Dusky Maid.  We had ours for several years but the foliage always let it down.  I just love those deep pink bells in the middle of winter.

Indeed correas are wonderful winter plants.  I must look out for this one, but what's the problem with its foliage Shelagh?

[edtijtgat]

This is not a flowering item, but since there is not so much to see this month I post this strange phenomenon. Normally Arisaema sikokianum doesn't form side corm. The only way to increase this plant is sowing it. A couple of years ago I replanted  a bulb and saw shoots that formed bulbs later on that year. This peculiar behaviour is repeated now every year. On the pictures you see the rejected bulbs from last year and the new shoots on the motherbulb for this year. Strangely bulbs resulted from seeds of that motherbulb show this same character.

[Garden Prince]

It should be called Arisaema sikkokianum 'Moneymaker'