May in the Northern Hemisphere

[Leena]

Trond, you have a good place for anemones for them to grow so well.
Cardamine heptaphylla looks good, here C.glanduligera has just finished flowering.

[Matt T]

Aquilegia viridiflora - just enough warmth in the sun today to release its fragrance - in profile and an awkward up the skirts shot.
Erodium x variabile 'Bishop's Form - very easy to grow, recovered well from grazing by sheep and will flower from now through till the autumn.

[Jupiter]

Matt amazing photos of Aquilegia viridiflora. I have three plants in the garden here but only one of them flowered last year, during a heatwave as luck would have it, so I hardly got to enjoy them before they were desiccated.

[Matt T]

Thanks, Jamus. It seems to appreciate our cool, moist climate, which must reflect its native habitat.

I'm pleased to tell you that the Limonium companyonis seeds you sent me are germinating. Too small to photograph just now but I'm made up - thanks.

[Jupiter]

Good new, I hope they do well for you Matt. Try to give them some warmth, if that's at all possible!

[Matt T]

Try to give them some warmth, if that's at all possible!

    Oh dear! That's a good one. 

They are under cover, so being mollycoddled a bit (as much as anything gets mollycoddled here).

[olegKon]

Aquilegia viridiflora is magnifiscent, Matt. Thanks for sharing the pictures.
Daphne blagyana "Brenda Anderson", a small plant from Potterton nursery, have opened its flower bud. The only disadvantage is that so far one should lie down to feel the fantastic smell

[johnw]

Things are roaring along here after several warms days.  Only to 12c today but the early magnolias are in full flower as are the very earliest rhododendrons.  The primulas have started at a garden on the coast that Ken tends.

Primula 'Freedom'
Primula marginata, dwarf form ex Jim Sutherland
Primula x miniera (allionii x marginata) ex Harry Jans
Phylliopsis 'Sugar Plum' which I would have thought crushed and/or dead

Even Nerine bowdenii leaves are peaking out here in the city, a great surprise was the survival of Trochodendron and the local Monkey Puzzle tree.  Atlas cedars looks more like larches I'm afraid though C. libani v. stenocoma is A1.

john

[Leena]

Very nice Primulas.
I sowed Primula marginata last winter from the seed exchange seeds, and I was wondering how to grow it after it germinates. It is more a rock garden primula than woodland bed primula?

Hacquetia epipactis is still flowering here, it is like a little sun in half shade bed.
Corydalis marschalliana has flowered already for some time and is soon going over, it is quite tall and impressive corydalis.

[johnw]

And the icy winter was not without casualties.

Dianthus - can never remember the species - 'Gordon Bentham'. 

Under ice & snow on the rock wall, the Dianthus is/was between the two studio windows, after the melt a sneaky Campanula dasyantha is on the assault and popping up in the corpse.

The neighbourhood cats have eaten an entire 15 gallon pot of Hakonechloa macra 'All Gold' overnight, I fear the worst is yet to come...............

johnw

[Tim Ingram]

The daphne is a super plant Oleg - we have it in a trough, just growing out now after flowering and must take cuttings this summer.

A few pictures of the small sand bed in our garden which brings more and more interest each year - in time I think I might remove the grass and replace with gravel, but will have to negotiate with Gillian! More tufa with this would be the perfect combination but the sand still works well for a remarkable variety of plants. The last two pictures show it late autumn 2011 and a close up of the sand used - fine crushed flint which is left over from the coarser grades used for pebble dashing houses and easily available in Kent.  Very sharp in texture. The sand is between 30 and 50cm in depth (except in the left hand corner where there used to be a tree and the soil is richer).

[Maggi Young]

Your sand beds are proving a great success, Tim. They look super.

[fredg]

Video taken today of English woodland. You know, there was a distinctive smell of onions in one spot that I never did pin down . Odd that 

[Maggi Young]

How lovely - I enjoyed that.  A good range of plants too - thought he "ramps" take the award for  quantity. I've never seen so many  as that - and I've seen a fair few  places where I thought they were very numerous!

[Hoy]

Trond, you have a good place for anemones for them to grow so well.
Cardamine heptaphylla looks good, here C.glanduligera has just finished flowering.

Yes, thanks Leena. But the slugs have been nasty to the Cardamines this spring.

Here is one you recognize, maybe I hope it will grow like the yellow one!





A Anemone robinsoniana seedling. They pop up everywhere. I assume they are robinsoniana seedlings