April 2018 in Northern Hemisphere

[Robert]

So many nice garden scenes this time of year. 

Leena,

The emerging shoots in your garden look just like a scene from a high Sierra Nevada meadow. Very inspirational. My wife and I are trying to imitate such things in parts of our garden, but the valley climate certainly does not cooperate.




An okay scene from our garden this morning. New water meters are being installed in our neighborhood. Wire hoops and wire fencing is required to keep the construction workers and their tools off the plants in the garden.



The first wave of flowers in this part of the garden. Dichelostemma capitatum ssp. capitatum and Eschscholzia caespitosa in bloom. California native Alliums and Eriogonums will be blooming next in this tiny section of our garden.



Layia gaillardioides and Eschscholzia caespitosa providing annual color in this part of the garden.



Only one portion of a nice patch of Triteleia ixioides ssp. scabra. Penstemon hetrophyllus var. purdyi and low dwarf varieties of Eriogonum umbellatum will be next in this spot. After that, Allium validum, various forms of Symphyotrichum, and Cirsium andersonii. Slowly this section of the garden is shaping up.



I thoroughly enjoy the California native annual Salvia carducea. The inflorescence and open flowers are incredibly fascinating as well as beautiful. I hope I can get a gob of seed this year to scatter around!

[Robert]

A few Azaleas in bloom this morning.

Azalea Idthi’s Laugh – One of out own hybrids. There is nothing special about it, other than we created it ourselves. It towers > 2 meters high in garden now.



‘Idthi’s Laugh’ – A close up of the flowers.



A very nice advanced generation Rhododendron atlanticum x flammeum hybrid. It has been in our Sacramento garden for over 10 years and is still < 0.5 meters tall. It blooms profusely every year.

Another one of our own creations, and once again nothing special, but we do like it.

[David Nicholson]

Lovely Robert you should be proud of them.

[Yann]

Fritillaria meleagris in the wild, not far the house.
Petasite hybridus, something not to introduce in any garden except if you don't know what to do for the next 20 years

[Gerdk]

Fritillaria meleagris in the wild, not far the house.
Petasite hybridus, something not to introduce in any garden except if you don't know what to do for the next 20 years

Yann, what a variation - thank you for showing it!

Gerd

[Gerdk]

Here are
Pulsatilla patens , doing well in the sandbed
and
Fritillaria moggridgei

Gerd

[Robert]

Lovely Robert you should be proud of them.

David,

Thank you for the encouraging comment. It is fairly easy to create beautiful deciduous azalea hybrids. I still have my breeding stock for dwarf, late blooming hybrids. If I ever get going on this again and bring the project to completion, well, that will be an accomplishment. 

[Robert]

I thought that some of the forumist would like some background information on the name of our Azalea “Iedhi’s Laugh”.

First I could not find the symbol for an ‘edh’ or ‘eth’ on my computer, however it looks a bit like the Greek letter δ. “Iedhi’s Laugh” refers to the Azalea’s gold color and abundance of flowers. The name was derived from a Kenning, from an Old Norse legend. Qlvaldi died and his sons took as much gold as each could hold in his mouth. One son was named Iedhi, thus the name ‘Iedhi’s Laugh’.

[ashley]

... I could not find the symbol for an ‘edh’ or ‘eth’ on my computer ...

Robert, ð is Unicode(hex) 00F0 and Ð is Unicode(hex) 00D0. 
For example in Word under the Insert tab choose Symbol then in font:(normal text) scroll down to the Latin-1 Supplement set of characters where you'll find eths & other goodies .

[ruweiss]

The warm and sunny weather brings a lot of flowers in the
Alpine house and the open garden:

[Hoy]

Interesting Robert!

I didn't recognize the name of Iði! (You can just copy the letter ð or whatever you want from any text on internet) Interesting theme and I really liked the  colour of 'Iedhi's Laugh'! I have one looking a bit similar - from seed I found on a shrub in a garden somewhere

[ruweiss]

More pictures:

[Philip Walker]

Pulsatilla vulgaris

[GordonT]

Philip, Spring is much further advanced for you! Our Pulsatillas are only now testing the air to see if it is safe to get growing. Other plants are getting on with the show.

[Véronique Macrelle]

an apparition this year: is it Hepatica acutiloba?
 probably a seed transported into the pot of another plant!
it's always nice to have surprises like this.