June 2014 in the Northern Hemisphere

[Gene Mirro]

Lilium bakerianum delavayi:





Arisaema fargesi:

[Maggi Young]

Everyone is showing a quite dazzling range of plants - seems like a great year.

[astragalus]

Blooming now, Penstemon cobaea, about 15" tall and a great background plant.  Hard not to love these huge tubby flowers.  Need to remove seedlings early because they immediately send down a deep tap root.

[Tim Ingram]

Some tremendous plants! I'm bowled over by those species lilies from Gene - so nice to see some of the real wildlings compared to the huge number of hybrids there are around.

These are two contrasting plants: Linum narbonense which I have grown for probably 40 years, originally from Joe Elliott's alpine nursery - an exquisite plant but we find it a pig to propagate. It is a good and very long lived perennial, compared to the deceivingly named L. perenne. And the hybrid Ourisia 'Cliftonville Roset' bred by Martin and Anna-Lisa Sheader (who grow so many S. American alpines). This is a cross between O. microphylla and O. polyantha and is growing well in a trough in our relatively dry garden even though both parent species grow naturally in quite cool and moist cliff faces in part shade. Kabschia saxifrage conditions are probably more ideal for it.

[meanie]

Blooming now, Penstemon cobaea, about 15" tall and a great background plant.  Hard not to love these huge tubby flowers.  Need to remove seedlings early because they immediately send down a deep tap root.

Thanks for posting that. I was wondering what this Penstemon that I saw at Oxfords Botanic Gardens is.......................

[meanie]

Some tremendous plants! I'm bowled over by those species lilies from Gene - so nice to see some of the real wildlings compared to the huge number of hybrids there are around.

These are two contrasting plants: Linum narbonense which I have grown for probably 40 years, originally from Joe Elliott's alpine nursery - an exquisite plant but we find it a pig to propagate. It is a good and very long lived perennial, compared to the deceivingly named L. perenne.

L.narbonense is also growing at OBG. They have a couple of zero maintenance beds running (not sure how long this project is intended to last) where the plants either survive, self seed or croak it. No watering, dead-heading etc. L.narbonense seems to go from strength to strength.

[Diane Clement]

Thanks for posting that. I was wondering what this Penstemon that I saw at Oxfords Botanic Gardens is....................... 

I think it might be Penstemon 'Sour Grapes'

[meanie]

I think it might be Penstemon 'Sour Grapes'

The flowers are much too large for that. The foliage (although not shown well in my photo) is wrong too.

Anyway, my "Sour Grapes" never flowers!!!

[Leena]

The tall Arisaema consanguineum in the precious page looks great.
Here I have Arisaema ciliatum var liubanense flowering now, it has increased quite nicely, but it is not very tall. The taller Arisaema on the left is A.angustatum.

[PaulM]

Wonderful little colony of Arisaemas Leena. I have a plant of Arisaema ciliatum var liubanense too but it has only produced one side shoot so far. Both stems are flowering this year though. Here are some pictures of plants which have flowered for me this spring-summer. The Salvia xanthocheila is from seeds donated through the Seed Exchange ex F&JK1086, so maybe someone else has had it in flower too.

The plants featured are:

Salvia xanthocheila

Salvia cadmica

Salvia cadmica

Erodium cedrorum

[PaulM]

Here are three pictures of Verbascum wiedemannianum which has flowered for me. Unfortunately it died before it set any seeds ( too much water or an ant problem ). I have some seedlings from this year so I hope to have more plants in 2015.

[PaulM]

Silene davidii is a mat forming species from China which has done quite well here, but not flowering profusely, but one flower here and there in the mat.

[Leena]

Wonderful little colony of Arisaemas Leena. I have a plant of Arisaema ciliatum var liubanense too but it has only produced one side shoot so far. Both stems are flowering this year though.

I had sown the seeds of that A.ciliatum var liubanense in winter 2008, I don't remember when they flowered for the first time, but perhaps  2011. Last winter we had very little snow and I was worried how Arisaemas survive but all were fine in the spring.

[PaulM]

Here is a picture of my plant. It has survived outdoors without any protection for several winters and I would consider it very hardy.

[PaulM]

Campanula argaea is flowering for me this year after a two year wait. I had it in the garden before and this is a seedling which came up in 2013. It should set plenty of seeds as wild bees are visiting the flowers frenzidly. It sort of forms a pyramid and is very nice and compact, about 50cm tall, maybe a little big for the rock garden but good in the back maybe. Seeds collected in Turkey in 2004. Will be donating seeds to the SRGC seed ex this year for sure.





There is also a picture of Campanula rigidipila, which I read is the southernmost occuring Campanula ( Abyssinia; Ethiopia ). It's a nice plant of about 30cm height.