My Bit of Heaven - by Kristl Walek

[Paddy Tobin]

Many thanks, Kristi,

Hopefully, I shall have some sassafras growing in the garden in the coming years. I may even start brewing my own root beer!

Paddy

[Katherine J]

Kristl, I spent half a day with reading this thread, and enjoyed it enormously, and learnt a lot. Thank you very much!

[Kristl Walek]

Diervilla lonicera forms colonies in the wild, and is very useful for erosion on slopes . While the honeysuckle-like flowers are small, they are numerous, and bloom most of the summer. Really outstanding in the fall when the foliage turns yellow, orange and finally red.

The beautiful Adiantum pedatum is fully mature now and in full swing.

Menispermum canadense, the Canadian Moonseed has beautiful, glossy foliage. In the wild grows in woodlands and along riverbanks.

The biennial climbing fumitory, Adlumia fungosa is not well known. In the wild it grows in deciduous woodlands holding onto whatever it can for support, or scrambling down slopes. It blooms for a long period in summer and maintains by self-sowing.

[Kristl Walek]

More orchids:

Pagonia ophioglossoides and Calopogon tuberosa.

And the second of my native Kalmias in bloom (K. angustifolia).

[Kristl Walek]

A few more ferns:

The Christmas Fern, Polystichum arostichoides has beautiful, leathery foliage. The spores are almost ripe.

Phegopteris connectilis with yellowish-green, soft fronds.

A great fern, Dryopteris goldiana and its cousin D. cristata.

[Kristl Walek]

Some water-loving natives:

Acorus americanus.

Iris versicolor and a slightly paler clone.

The widespread Potentilla palustris.

Carex comosa, which is interesting at every phase of growth.

[Kristl Walek]

And in the sunshine:

The second of our native Penstemon, P. digitalis.

Desmodium canadense is a little known, showy native.

Very rare to extinct across it's range, the tiny Helianthemum canadense.

And of course, Ascelpias tuberosa, blooming early this year. It is extremely rare in our area, existing primarily in the form of A. tuberosa var. interior.

[Paul T]

Kristl,

Just got to this topic..... 

So many stunning things including the Cypripediums, ferns, Iris, and all those other wonderful gems that we never see here.  Not going to list the ones I particularly love as I'll just get depressed that I can't get them here.    Absolutely stunning just doesn't seem to do this topic justice.  THANK YOU!!! 

[Maggi Young]

Paul, I understand your excitement - this is a really SUPER thread! Those Pogonia and Calopogon  are stunning.....serious "covetessness" breaking out here!

[Kristl Walek]

...and all those other wonderful gems that we never see here.  Not going to list the ones I particularly love as I'll just get depressed that I can't get them here.   

Paul,
I just recently sent wholesale quantities of all my (allowable) fern spores to a fern grower down under---and there are at least 3 nurseries I supply in Australia and N.Z. so I imagine some of my natives will begin to show up there in the marketplace at your end at some point.

I am still entirely mystified by what is/is not allowed. Some of the allowable species I barely allow on my own property here in the north---and others, which are near impossible to germinate/keep going in the garden are verboten.

Of course the other annoyanace are species not yet in the AQIS database---for instance, I carry seed of three choice Pyrolas, yet only Pyrola secunda is listed as allowed entry (if not listed it is either prohibited, or requires assessment)---well, that will not happen in my lifetime!!!!

[Magnar]

Kristl..so great to see all yuor pics of interesting plants. Calopogon tuberosa was totally new to me. Are those pics from the wild or in yuor garden?

[Kristl Walek]

Hi Magnar....

Whenever I photograph something in the wild, I will say so in the post---otherwise the plants are growing here on my land. The last series of pictures were all from the garden.

I have built a few artificial environments for the bog/fen orchids etc. and they seem to be doing amazingly well. Not as great as in the wild, of course!!!!

You would like it here this year---it's been mostly cool and wet---I still remember your last visit when not one of us could bear to even go outside to see the garden. You might be one of the few people on this forum who REALLY understands when I say how humid and hot it usually is here in the summer....

I remember thinking how happy you were going to be to leave eastern Canada and the heat and head to Alaska and then back to Norway!!!!

And here is a small memory of your first visit here:

[Magnar]

Oh yes, Kristl, I do remember,, and I also remeber the fantastic cactus flowering you had then 

[Lesley Cox]

We in NZ are permitted to import seed of Pyrola asarifolia, but not other species. Can you tell us down here Kristl, which nurseries have imported your seeds? It would be a help if we're trying to source plants and if we contacted them in the meantime, they'd know we were interested.

The complete list of what we may import is listed on the website of our Ministry of Africulture and Forestry, at

www1.maf.govt.nz/cgi-bin/bioindex/bioindex.pl

Note the "1" after www. I don't know of any other website with a number at that place.

When the site loads, there is a place to enter genus and species names then a search tab. If you put in both names you'll get whether that species may be imported or not but if you only put in the genus name, you'll get a complete list of all permitted species in that genus. I have several printed out and pinned on the wall over my computer; fritillaria, iris, crocus, primula. Saves time when wanting to order seed.

There are two Import Specifications listed. 1 - Seeds for Sowing and 2 - Nursery Stock. If the seed column says Basic, we can import it. If the species is not listed, we can't. For Nursery Stock, L1 (Level 1) means we can import it with specified conditions (available elsewhere on the website) and L2 means a full 12 month quarantine period, also with conditions, so to all intents and purposes, private gardeners can't import plants with the L2 designation even though they are permitted.

In New Zealand (and I suspect in Australia) whether a plant is rare or difficult is irrelevant for import purposes. In NZ, we are permitted to import WHAT IS HERE ALREADY and not permitted to import, what is NOT here, or deemed not to be here, on the grounds that anything "new" may be a potential risk, to flora, fauna, environment, commercial crops, etc. Weediness is only one criterion on which potential new plants are assessed.

[Kristl Walek]

Hi Lesley---thanks for that link. I will post the nursery references---as soon as I find some time to search for the names (no longer easy, as I have stopped keeping a computerized data base of names/addresses since I stopped doing the print catalogue).