August 2015 in the Northern Hemisphere

[Gabriel B]

Robert, I'd love to try your monkshood, and I'll make sure to collect my larkspur's seed. (I have a list of plant requests, because there are too many to remember.)


Trond, I figured you might actually know the name. However, your comment gets me wondering how similar monkshoods and larkspurs are, and now I have an interesting question to look into one of these days, probably once I get a monkshood growing through our hot summers.

[Robert]

Robert, I'd love to try your monkshood, and I'll make sure to collect my larkspur's seed. (I have a list of plant requests, because there are too many to remember.)

Gabriel,

This is great! Later this season I will have a seed list, for trading seed. If this is something you are interested in I'll PM a copy when I have it together.

[meanie]

At long last I have a decent bloom on one of my Ismene x festalis (so far the buds have been damaged by slugs or water damage in cool spells before the buds open)..............

[johnralphcarpenter]

Very nice, haven't got mine to flower yet.

[Pete Clarke]

The lovely yellow, long tubed Calylophus lavendlifolius, flowering for the first time for me.
Gentiana paradoxa.

[meanie]

Very nice, haven't got mine to flower yet.

In my experience they flower best if a bit pot bound.

Stapelia gigantea..................

[Chris Johnson]

In my experience they flower best if a bit pot bound.

Stapelia gigantea..................

Wow, cracking photograph. A much richer colour than most images I've seen.

[meanie]

Wow, cracking photograph. A much richer colour than most images I've seen.

Thanks! It is a particularly good colour. I'm after one that is almost a gold colour that I've seen a photo of but no joy so far.

[meanie]

Desfontiania spinosa.............


Salvia microphylla...............


And Salvia guaranitica "Black and Blue".................

[David Nicholson]

I really am a sucker for the very deep blue Salvias such as your 'Black and Blue' and I see that 'Amistad' is from the same family. It's a given that I don't have room in the garden but I thought a big pot might be possible? What do you think?

[meanie]

I really am a sucker for the very deep blue Salvias such as your 'Black and Blue' and I see that 'Amistad' is from the same family. It's a given that I don't have room in the garden but I thought a big pot might be possible? What do you think?

Black and Blue is to the best of my knowledge a natural selection of S.guaranitica whereas Amistad is thought to be a hybrid of S.guaranitica and S.gesneriiflora. I've grown both side by side and Amistad croaked it whilst B&B survived and spread (it has a stoloniferous habit once established). Both grow well in pots and as far as Amistad goes it is best grown in a pot unless you want to lift it every autumn.Purple Majesty is also thought to have the same parents as Amistad but I found it to bloom later in the season but way further into autumn and winter (so maybe S.gesneriiflora is the dominant gene?). Another good one for pot growing.
S.urica grows well in a pot, dead easy from seed but realistically it is an annual. Flowers strongly from late August until the frosts at up to two metres in a fantastic royal blue...........

[David Nicholson]

Thanks for that, if I can get hold of Black and Blue I'll give it a run in a pot and maybe Amistad too.

I bought a small plant of Salvia muelleri this afternoon from Plantworld (Ray Brown). He had one planted out and it's about my size for my garden, about 18" high and roughly the same spread, maybe a bit more. From a quick Google it doesn't seem to be freely available in the UK. I was attracted to it because of it's dark purple flowers but found this picture on Wikimedia Commons attributed to a Stan Shebs which seemed to be freely available to users.

[meanie]

Thanks for that, if I can get hold of Black and Blue I'll give it a run in a pot and maybe Amistad too.

I bought a small plant of Salvia muelleri this afternoon from Plantworld (Ray Brown). He had one planted out and it's about my size for my garden, about 18" high and roughly the same spread, maybe a bit more.

I have a couple of young plants from seed that I harvested off of my Black and Blue last year. If they come true you can have one (although I'm hoping that they may revert back to the true species). If you still haven't got one next spring let me know and I'll have a dig around the root stock for shooting stolons. It's a good and easy way to propagate several plants.

Salvia muelleri looks good. From a quick google it would appear to be a natural hybrid of S.greggii and S.microphylla - good hardy species.

[Gabriel B]

Another set of native flowers are coming into bloom: blazing-stars (Liatris). These are in the sunflower family and have light pinky-purple flowers arranged in spikes or buttons. They are all native to Minnesota, each with their own place according to their preferred soil types. I haven't seen them in the wild myself, sadly, because they don't grow very often inside the city.

Liatris pycnostachya is a very tall spike-flowered species (almost as tall as me). Liatris ligulistylis is a tall button-flowered species, though my plants are young and short at the moment. Those two like moisture.







Liatris aspera is a dry-loving species with buttons like L. ligulistylis, but shorter (under 3 ft, 5 dm). It's just budding at the moment, but the bracts on the flower heads are very interesting, white-edged and puffy. Liatris punctata is a very drought-tolerant species with spike flowers. I just have a picture of its leaves with the cute curly hairs on them. I'll take a picture of its flowers when it starts blooming.





There are common names for each of these, but they are rather arbitrary so I won't mention them. Most people can only distinguish the species by the shape of the bracts around the flowers, but I tell them apart by their heights, moisture preferences, and flower cluster shapes.

I love these native flowers, and they are very attractive to butterflies. I'm curious, has anyone heard of them outside of the United States and Canada?

[fermi de Sousa]

Liatris pycnostachya is a very tall spike-flowered species (almost as tall as me).
......There are common names for each of these, but they are rather arbitrary so I won't mention them......
I'm curious, has anyone heard of them outside of the United States and Canada?

Hi Gabriel,
Liatris pycnostachya has been grown in Australia as "Kansas Gayfeather" since I was a kid. It was a standard addition to cottage gardens and perennial borders. I didn't realise it was such a water lover, though - probably why it didn't survive in my garden!
cheers
fermi