July 2015 in the Southern Hemisphere

[Jupiter]

A friend has just pointed out that I've named it incorrectly. It's usually called Oxalis versicolor, but Otto says it's Oxalis hirta.

[fermi de Sousa]

A friend has just pointed out that I've named it incorrectly. It's usually called Oxalis versicolor, but Otto says it's Oxalis hirta.

Hi Jamus,
I think it used to be called O. hirta var versicolor but I think it's now just O. versicolor.
As Robert says, you've grown it to perfection! This is one that I "trust" in the garden but it is being crowded out by the Oxalis palmifrons! We've now discovered an outlier of the O.palmifrons clump, about 15 cm away from the rock edge, so we'll be investigating how they respond to glyphosate on the weekend!
cheers
fermi

[Jupiter]

Thanks Fermi, I've put a few bulbs of this into the rock garden in a little nook and it's looking good in there. If Oxalis palmifrons is anything like pes-caprae roundup won't be enough to kill it. You might need something stronger, for instance a tiny spike of Hammer in Glyphosate will increase it's effectiveness on broad-leaf weeds markedly.

[johnralphcarpenter]

Hammer?

[Jupiter]

It's a herbicide John, a trade name here, I don't know if it's available as something else in other countries.

[Chris Johnson]

Hammer?

You can Google it, Ralph.

It's available here but needs extreme caution in usage.

[Lesley Cox]

You could omit the massoniana word from your versicolor picture too Jamus. O. massoniana is a gorgeous autumn flowering species.

Have to add another picture of Iris danfordiae now that it has come out properly.

[Maggi Young]

Seems a bit mean of me to have a favourite of the reticulate Iris - but it's hard  not to love Iris danfordiae- small and perfectly formed.   It's the colour of sunshine with fab green markings in Lesley's picture - just lovely.

[Jupiter]

Yes I agree Maggi, I've never seen it in person but those pictures are stunning Lesley.

[Anthony Darby]

Iris unguicularius cretensis flowering now. This one came from Bill Dijk, whom I visited on Saturday.

[Lesley Cox]

Those are lovely too Anthony. It flowers quite a bit later for me, Sept/October. Of course Bill and you live in the banana belt - and avocado and mango and pawpaw etc. Lucky people.

[Jupiter]

Dionysia aretioides surprised me by popping out flowers! I wasn't expecting that!


Camellias are looking nice in the garden at the moment


Narcissus albidus ssp. albidus. I thought this fellow had finished flowering and then it decided to have another go.


Senecio rowleyanus, smells divinely like old fashioned pomanders, oranges and cloves.

[Jupiter]

Maggi the new image resizing tool destroyed my pics...     maybe some subtle tweaking, jpeg compression settings are cranked up to technical level, I can see efficiency is winning out over fidelity. 


For comparison., hosted on flickr vs. srgc

[fermi de Sousa]

Some pics from the last AGS Vic Group meeting (25-07-15)
A view of the bench
Palmiro's Juno Iris x Sindpers
Helen's retic Iris 'Alida'
Di's Cyclamen coum
?Viv's Eranthis hiemalis
cheers
fermi

[Maggi Young]

Maggi the new image resizing tool destroyed my pics...     maybe some subtle tweaking, jpeg compression settings are cranked up to technical level, I can see efficiency is winning out over fidelity.  ;

For comparison., hosted on flickr vs. srgc

Jamus,  I've compared the two photos and I can see there is a difference in sharpness.
The flickr hosted pic is downloading here as  497 x 640 pixels / 77KB. The second is 543 x 700 pixels / 15KB

I regret that there is this slight detriment to your most excellent quality photos. I think, though, that if you were to load pix pre-sized to the SRGC limits, pixel wise, (750 max wide, 700 max high) you would still be able to load a higher resolution. I will be testing that as time allows.

The reasoning behind the introduction of the automatic sizing  function is that many people have said that the chore of resizing their photos put them off  posting pix and  indeed it was clear that some found it very difficult and others were simply ignoring the sizes asked for.  Naturally, we  want as many people as possible to feel relaxed about both posting and viewing pictures on the forum.
We would prefer that pictures are posted directly  to the forum, since there have been instances in the past where  photos of interest have been lost to the forum and to discussions here, because of outside  hosting site accounts not being maintained or removed. The integrity of  discussions on plant differences and so on has thus been compromised  which seems a great pity in one of the few places where all are welcome to join in and many terrific pieces of plant related information have been shared openly in a place where it can remain n a searchable form.

I will certainly look into the question of whether, for those wishing to have a higher resolution for their photos, the "old" resizing method will still work, but I hope you will acknowledge  the benefit of this new function to the average member who seeks an easy route, or for those seeking to load many photos, say of a show, for the benefit of the wide audience unable to see such events in person.

Edit to add:   I have seen that it is possible to load a photo within the size restriction up to the 200KB limit which will allow for the posting of  higher resolution photos  by the  previous method, which will, I hope  satisfy  those seeking such refinements.  In saying this, there is no doubt that perfectly sharp and very detailed photos  have been posted on the Forum well within the pixel restrictions and often well below 100 KB in size so there is plenty scope for all, we hope.