January 2016 in the Southern Hemisphere

[Lesley Cox]

Anthony, do you not think you would be better to get hair tattooed on your head?

Jamus how could we forget you now you have a calendar to your name? Well done!

[Jupiter]

  Thanks Lesley, I am trying to stay positive through this drought. I'm glad I've got the oncos to play with. My next round of embryo culture is scheduled for next week! Some exciting species waiting for me in the fridge.

[Parsla]

Hi Robert,  the vulcan and star wars are beautiful magnolias. hard to believe there are people out there who hack and thieve trees, although i know it happens.

In my long distant past i was friendly with a landscape gardener for an outer suburb and still recall his anger and distress when after just finishing planting a parkland (as something nice for the locals), he arrived at work on the Monday to find someone had taken to the trees with a chainsaw.

So it happens...

Jamus, I'm glad to know you are not too despondent. Its easy to get that way. The main reason I show so many shrubs here is because i have very few of the alpines and bulbs to show at this time of year.

Two offerings.
1. A lovely blue geranium I bought from Dan Magnus at Woodbridge some years ago. I'm just not sure which one it is now. It has always multiplied well, even if its thoroughly scorched.
2. Like others, the autumn snowflakes, Acis autumnalis, are popping up early all over.

Jacqui.

[Jupiter]

Acis autumnalis flowering now?!    I have a potful I have been meaning to plonk into the garden somewhere. I'd better keep an eye on it.

Lesley following on from your tattoo posts... my little sister has just had one done, which our Mum designed in her usual botanical style. I don't usually go in for tattoos, so it's not really my thing but I have to say I like the design and the execution.

[fermi de Sousa]

Jacqui,
no sign of the acis here yet!
Over a week ago I posted a pic of the first flowers on Lobelia triconocaulis - they still look fresh today and have been joined by a third,
cheers
fermi

[Parsla]

Very pretty lobelia, fermi.

A couple from the dry garden

1. Possibly my favourite of the common garden salvias is the cultivar African skies, for the clouds of lavender blue all summer long. A perfect foil for roses. 

2. Eryngium bourgatii, statuesque silvery blooms

3. although i have already shown this lovely cyclamen from Otto, it is continuing to send up buds despite being months early. perhaps the temperature drop from 40s to 20s in a week did it.

jacqui

[Lesley Cox]

Jacqui I'm wondering if your Geranium in G. ibericum. I have what seems to be the same as yours and have not known the name either. It was here when we arrived and is in bloom now. (no it's not. I went out to take a picture and found every flower finished except this really grotty one, almost over. The colour is more purple, less blue than yours so perhaps it's not ibericum after all). And perhaps mine is not anyway. I saw one in the Dunedin Bot Garden a couple of weeks ago and thought it was the same as mine. It was labelled as G. ibericum but they have been known to have the occasional wrongly named plant. Went to look in the Rix and Phillips Perennials book, Vol 11 but Geraniums are in Vol 1 and Vol 11 is currently elsewhere. Life is a total frustration at the moment. Still 5 weeks of plaster to go!

[Parsla]

Hi Lesley,

That was very helpful. Thank you. It does look like geranium ibericum except, as you say, mine is closer to a true blue. The hairy leaves have quite rounded lobes and I  now wonder it mayn't be the G. ibericum  G. platypetalum cross called G. x magnificum

We had a little rain overnight here. Such a relief after the unspeakable furnace of yesterday. 46 deg in Parkville where I work. Close to the record I would think. I imagine similarly hot here because when I arrived home at dusk it looked awful. Scorching everywhere. Really beyond the pale and one questions the futility of gardening in such an unforgiving climate.

[Parsla]

The garden is currently a ridiculous combination of frizzled, fried and lush growth spurred by the heat.  A total mess! A lone gladiolus has flowered, cheering my morning. Looks like G. papilio, except the flowers seem more erect than i had thought. It is a tad frayed, but posting it anyway...

jacqui.

[Anthony Darby]

Here's Pelargonium sidoides I grew from seed sown May 2015. The only one that germinated.

[Jupiter]

Beautiful Anthony. The flower colour is very light compared with mine. Do you think it's the species or maybe a hybrid? I was told that mine might be a hybrid, but I think it just looked light coloured because it was back lit in the photo I took.

[Anthony Darby]

It's the species. I've seen quite a range of colours at the Auckland Botanic Gardens yesterday. I only photographed the darker one, then my camera battery died.

[Jupiter]

Mine is flowering well at the moment. I've been slack with photography because the garden is looking very drab and less than inspiring.

There is this, Ceropegia stapeliiformis, flowering in the bathroom at the moment.

[Parsla]

Hi Jupiter,

that's an amazing critter you have in your bathroom.

my garden too, has little to tempt at present. For some reason i have never been good with indoor plants.

just a couple.

1&2. A charming little scilla that came my way from Otto has sent up a spike. The anthers are very pretty against the petals.

3. an interesting polygonatum that came from Lynn Mc Gough.

4. The beautifully marked foliage of Cyclamen persicum, kindly gifted by Marcus.

[Maggi Young]

Hi Jupiter,
that's an amazing critter you have in your bathroom.

   That's what I thought - looked a bit dangerous to me!!