April 2017 in the northern hemisphere

[K-D Keller]

Extraordinary plants Thomas.

Draba bryoides on the top of a tuffa rock.
Clematis tenuiloba, Erigeron mantanus, Phlox covillei „Alba and Iris lacustris all from North America.

[K-D Keller]

Viola delphinantha
Veronica bombycina ssp. bolkardagensis

The last Primulas are in flower now:
Primula palinuri
Long waiting for the first flower of Primula recubariensis
Primula auricula var. balbisii in a tuffa hole.

[kris]

Colchicum bulbocodium
Scilla siberica
Draba dedeana in bud

[kris]

Saxifraga oppositifolia
Draba aizoides
Daphne sp-starting to form bud

[Lesley Cox]

I'm not surprised Leucogenes that you are pleased with your Kalmia/Loiseleuria. It looks lovely. I have a good little one and both it and one (both from SRGC seed) I gave to a good friend are looking very well too. Perhaps this coming spring?

John I wonder if our earwigs are different from yours? I've certainly never tasted one but I've never smelled one either. And I do have plenty around. Seems there's one in every mature iris seed pod. I have a good sense of smell too.

[johnw]

John I wonder if our earwigs are different from yours? I've certainly never tasted one but I've never smelled one either. And I do have plenty around. Seems there's one in every mature iris seed pod. I have a good sense of smell too.

Lesley  - The European earwig has a most nauseating smell should you pick one up, very hard to describe it.  The smell will linger on your fingers until your give them a good scrub down.

john

[ArnoldT]

Had to get to the bottom of this:

http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2012/02/earwig.html

[James Cheshire]

The earwigs in my neck of the woods (eastern USA) also give off a foul odor when bothered.

[Lesley Cox]

Well ours can't be the same then as I frequently pick one up, or encourage it to walk onto my hand, in order to take it outside if one from a seed pod say, escapes onto the carpet.

Arnold's blog reference talks about an earwig's hind wings. But I don't think ours has wings. Not visibly and I never saw one in 70 odd years that moved other than  by walking.

I'll try to find something else and try to photograph the next one I find .

[Carolyn]

And Helonias bullata and another Lewisia cotyledon.

The helonias looks interesting. I haven't seen it before. It looks similar to heloniopsis and ypsilandra, which can easily be propagated from leaf cuttings, but whose seeds are ephemeral. Seeds seem to be available from plant-world-seeds, but I wonder whether they would be ephemeral like the other two? How hardy is helonias? I see that it grows in wet places, so I wonder whether it would rot when wet AND cold?

[WimB]

The helonias looks interesting. I haven't seen it before. It looks similar to heloniopsis and ypsilandra, which can easily be propagated from leaf cuttings, but whose seeds are ephemeral. Seeds seem to be available from plant-world-seeds, but I wonder whether they would be ephemeral like the other two? How hardy is helonias? I see that it grows in wet places, so I wonder whether it would rot when wet AND cold?

Carolyn...the seeds are ephemeral too...mine came from freshly harvested seeds. I guess leaf cuttings like in the other Melanthiaceae should be possible. Over here it is perfectly hardy and so it is in the southeast of Belgium, where I've seen them in small stream in a garden at -15°C, I don't know the temps where you life but it seems quite strong!

[Carolyn]

Thanks, Wim. I wonder why this plant is not more widely available then? It does not seem to be for sale anywhere.
Our lowest temperature (in that dreadful winter of 2010) was -12C, so it should be OK here.

[Leena]

Helonias bullata looks interesting, but then I googled it and it seems to require moist but not too wet soil. Difficult combination. How do you grow it, Wim?

Here Daphne mezereum is now in flower.

[WimB]

Helonias bullata looks interesting, but then I googled it and it seems to require moist but not too wet soil. Difficult combination. How do you grow it, Wim?

Here Daphne mezereum is now in flower.

I grow it together with Sarracenia and other CP's, in constantly humid peat, sometimes even very wet and in winter it can be wet for weeks on end.

[Leena]

Thanks. Here the very wet soil would freeze in the winter, so I better forget Helonias.