June 2016 in the Northern Hemisphere

[Lesley Cox]

Chocolate doesn't come much darker then that Michael. 90% cocoa solids?

Love those scarlets Steve. Since moving over 3 years ago now, I've had only 3 flowers on my Asteranthera and those all just within the last (winter) month. I adore this plant. It grows really well and flowered well in a tunnel with seed set but behaving badly here.

[Lesley Cox]

Also very pleased to see the Canna Meanie, as I filched some seed from it in my daughter's warmer garden, back in February but not sure what it was. It was still in flower as well as having blue/black seeds. A few have germinated this week. If it's hardy with you it probably is with me.

[Rick R.]

Regarding the shed roof garden, Leslie, it does need heavier construction to accommodate the extra weight (which would also include snow for us).  The soil media is very simple: half Turface and half something else - I'll find out.  Average yearly precipitation is about 24 inches.  We have no cyclic monsoon or drought period, although droughts do happen.  They don't do any regular watering of the roof.  I would have them explain it all, but many years ago, they decided computers were not for them, and they've stuck with that decision - not even email!

[Michael J Campbell]

Viola 'Molly Sanderson'

[ThomasHe]

what a lovely Viola this is! Very nice, Michael.

[Regelian]

This is from seed of Dierama Guinevere, considered a D. pulcherrima cultivar, that come true from seed!

[meanie]

Also very pleased to see the Canna Meanie, as I filched some seed from it in my daughter's warmer garden, back in February but not sure what it was. It was still in flower as well as having blue/black seeds. A few have germinated this week. If it's hardy with you it probably is with me.

If it's hardy here in the Cotswold it will be a walk in the park in Dunedin. Kind of the wrong time of year to be germinating them isn't it? Just keep them ticking over for the winter if you can.
Mine were sown mid January last year and they were in bloom by early June. By the end of last season the tubers had split a 20cm (ish) pot open! For the winter they were simply put into a bigger pot that I then dropped into the border. The other potful that I kept in a pot in the greenhouse are still a couple of weeks from blooming.

[meanie]

Penstemon smallii..............




Echinopsis subdenudata..........

[johnstephen29]

Digitalis silver fox has come into flower here.

[Lesley Cox]

Thanks Meanie. I tend to sow seed when I get it or more accurately perhaps, when I get around to it so the Canna was sown in March after my February holiday but our summer went on and on this year so some things may have been confused, a state I find myself in more and more frequently of late.

Love 'Molly Sanderson.' We have a plant here absolutely identical which surfaced before MS and known, inevitably, as 'All Black,' (Wales lining up for another beating (was trying to think of a nicer word) on Saturday night.) But I haven't seen it about for a couple of years or more. One of those plants perhaps which we lose through carelessness and can't ever replace. Maybe someone still has it.

Does anyone recall a form of Digitalis purpurea called 'Heywoodii'? Another plant I used to have and loved it for its heavily white felted leaves and flowers of soft lemon yellow suffused lightly with pink at the edges. Unfortunately it was biennial or at least short-lived and the seedlings when they matured were all the progeny from a pollination by straight, purplish purpurea. Not the delicate colouring and not nearly such good foliage. Two batches of seed from a nursery were the same.

[Michael J Campbell]

Gentiana straminea

[Zdenek]

From this month:
Antirrhinum glutinosum
Daphne oleoides
Dianthus alpinus - a selfseedling
Heuchera pulchella
Linum elegans - the real thing

[johnstephen29]

Rodgersia in flower here, I'm not too sure what species is as I have had it for years and the label has been lost, it's doing really well in this moist, shady spot in the front garden.

[meanie]

Sometimes we overlook the obvious. Here is Vicia faba.................


AKA the humble Broad Bean.............

[johnstephen29]

Loverly flowers on the broad bean, I remember them fron when I was a kid, I hated them. Is it the runner bean which is the climber with the red flowers?