April 2017 in the northern hemisphere

[Hoy]

Trond,

Earlier in this thread I wrote about Azalea 'Idi's Laugh'. The "d" should be an "ed". I my key board does not seem to do old Norsk letters. Any ideas?

Robert,

I don't have those letters either but I think you can connect thenm to your keyboar. I usually copy them when I need them!

[Lesley Cox]

I don't myself believe that cold to whatever degree has much or any effect on slugs. People say to me sometimes "very hard winter, the slugs will be dying in droves." But they don't. I am not able to prove it, though I'm sure someone has done, that slugs have a built-in anti-freeze system which keeps them alive even if relatively dormant, through the coldest times and climates. We may have different species here in the quite mild southern hemisphere countries but whatever we have, they are as bad and prolific in the spring and the rest of the year regardless of what winter we have.

[johnw]

Lesley  - Bad winters have no effect on slugs here, not even the giant introduced one that can be 8+ inches long.  I've often wondered if we ever had the misfortune of having NZ flatworms as happened in the UK would a cold snowless winter kill them?

john

[Leena]

Unfortunately slugs and snails are still alive also here after the winter, but right now they are still dormant, and start to move around only after the temperatures rise above zero at nights and also when day temperatures get higher than what they are now.
Winter 2015-2016 was very cold with little snow in January, and here many people said that there were less snails in the spring than usually, but they are very fast to breed and in the end of the summer there were more of them again.

[MargaretB]

I can vouch for the fact that slugs are able to survive freezing.  Several years ago I put a glass bowl of frozen peas in the microwave to cook not realising they included a slug.  To my horror the heat brought the slug to life and it climbed to the top of the bowl trying to escape before it was cooked to death.  In case you're wondering, no we didn't eat them!

[johnw]

Margaret  - Good you spotted it before it became mushy peas tartar.  Found an earwig doing the backstroke in my juice one morning, did without juice for some time.

john

[Leucogenes]

On days without sun is yellow particularly beautiful ...
Draba bryoides var. imbricata

[Lesley Cox]

I quite like earwigs. I read somewhere years ago that they were very good mothers. That seemed to be justification for tolerating them.

[Lesley Cox]

A lovely Draba Leucogenes. Yellows in the springtime are the very essence of a garden. It amazes me that some gardeners and even alpine gardeners will say "I don't like yellow flowers." How could they not? 

[astragalus]

Lesley, I've never understood that either. As you say, yellow is the essence of spring. Even the poets and painters celebrated yellow, i.e. Wordsworth on daffodils, and Monet not only splashing yellow all over his garden but bringing it into his dining room, a really unforgettable sight. Can't imagine a spring without daffodils, or a rock garden without drabas, vitalianas (or whatever new name they've dreamed up for them), genistas and cytisus.  For me, the color warms and cheers the cold days of early spring.

[johnw]

I quite like earwigs.

Believe me they taste as bad as they smell.  I failed to mention that for fear of disgusting some.

john

[WimB]

Anemone rupicola
Lewisia cotyledon
Pulsatilla patens var. flavescens
Pulsatilla rubra
and Viola delphinantha

[WimB]

And Helonias bullata and another Lewisia cotyledon.

[Leucogenes]

Probably one of the smallest Salix species ... Only a few centimeters high. Salix calyculata from Tibet.

[Leucogenes]

I am particularly happy about this ... Kalmia procumbens (formerly Loiseleuria procumbens) from the Eastern Alps, Austria