July in the Northern Hemisphere

[Tristan_He]

Nepeta subsessilis is an attractive catmint with large flowers. This is a good form, it also comes in a pasty pink.



From seed collected on a different holiday, this is Dianthus seguiriana subsp. pseudocollina. The flowers are beautiful but it needs a lot of sun to give its best, and unfortunately it isn't scented. Still a beautiful plant by any standards.



A white form of Viola cornuta.




Astrantia carniolica is a charming miniature astrantia from Slovenia. Unlike its cousins, it is small enough and late enough emerging not to crowd out dwarf bulbs and other nice things you may want to grow nearby. It seems virtually unknown in cultivation and I can't understand why. I usually donate seed to the exchange so hopefully it is finding its way around.



Trollius farreri (not sure if this is a good name, but it's what I received the seed as). Useful as it can be grown with bulbs and emerges after they have finished (this bed is where I grow Corydalis malkensis).

[Leena]

From seed collected on a different holiday, this is Dianthus seguiriana subsp. pseudocollina. The flowers are beautiful but it needs a lot of sun to give its best, and unfortunately it isn't scented. Still a beautiful plant by any standards.

It is very nice and the best thing is that it flowers now. Last year I sowed seeds of Dianthus seguieri var collinus, could mine be close to what yours is?

[Robert]

Hi Leena

It is nice to see Lilium pardalinum in your garden (and all your other garden plants). It appears to be thriving in your garden. It is quite lovely.

I thought that you might like to see some of our other native California Lilium species and a few hybrids that I have developed using these species.



Lilium paradalinum ssp. wigginsii



Lilium pardalinum ssp pardalinum from seed gathered near Takilma, Oregon during my studies of West Coast Lilium species during the 1990’s.



A lilium kelloggii hybrid. The hybrids are much easier to maintain in the garden.



A Lilium parryi hybrid.



A Lilium parvum var. hollidayi hybrid. It is possible to create tough, long-lived look-a-like hybrids without plundering native seed stocks of rare plant species. Domestic true breeding seed lines can also be created. The native populations of Lilium parvum var. hollidayi have been severely impacted by human activities.

[Robert]

Lessingia leptoclada F₂ – This is one of my preliminary successes. These are the first flowers to open of an F₂ line of Lessingia leptoclada. I was able to secure a fair amount of genetic variability in this line. Lessingia leptoclada is an annual species native to California. It is an extremely heat tolerant and xeric species that blooms summer through autumn. With some genetic wiggle room, I will see what potential might exist in this species.



Arctostaphylos manzanita ssp. manzanita thrives during our hot dry summers.



The bark of Arctostaphylos manzanita ssp. manzanita is beautiful, as is the bark of many other Arctostaphylos species.



This is a developing specimen of Arctostaphylos glandulosa ssp. glandulosa in our Sacramento garden.



This is an exceptional form of Arctostaphylos viscida ssp. viscida – very compact, with very silvery-gray foliage.

[Robert]

Oryza sativa, rice (foreground). Most likely only a farmer would see the beauty in developing rice plants. Jasmin disagrees:  People plant ornamental grasses, why not a food grass? Robert is excited – this autumn he will be planting Ethiopian two-rowed barley and his on strain of rye. Homegrown grain has exceptional flavor and nutritional value. The Flint corn is coming along nicely and Pearl Millet will be planted next summer.

[Tristan_He]

It is very nice and the best thing is that it flowers now. Last year I sowed seeds of Dianthus seguieri var collinus, could mine be close to what yours is?

Hi Leena, if you got them from the SRGC seed exchange they should be very like this, as I regularly donate seed of this one.

[Tristan_He]

Hi Leena

It is nice to see Lilium pardalinum in your garden (and all your other garden plants). It appears to be thriving in your garden. It is quite lovely.

I thought that you might like to see some of our other native California Lilium species and a few hybrids that I have developed using these species.

Robert, I love your hybrids! North American hybrid lilies are the best, so much more graceful than many of the overbred forms of the Chinese lilies.

[Robert]

Hi Tristan

You post photographs of some very intriguing plant species, at least from the perspective of our isolated outpost here in California.

It is amazing what can be accomplished with what is close at hand. Many of our California native lilies grow within a very short distance from our Placerville property (e.g. L. pardalinum, L. humboldtii, L. washingtonianum and L. parvum). We have many native lilies in our garden, both species and the results of my ongoing breeding projects. Now that I have restarted my breeding projects, a new crop of plants can be evaluated each season.

Leena,

I forgot to ask, is the forecast for temperature to be 4-6 Celsius warmer than average?

[Gabriela]

Nice to see beautiful plants from all. In SW Ontario it is not too hot anymore and now we get all the rain that should have come in May!
No complaint about it though, since other regions in Canada are struggling with hot weather and wildfires.

Some usual species for early July: Arisaema fargesii, Delphinium fissum and D. grandiflorum, Deinanthe caerulea and a new resident of the garden which I am proud to see flowering - Swertia perennis.








Swertia perennis, growing at the edge of a bed which remains wet longer when it rains due to the natural gradient of the garden and the clay subsoil.

[Yann]

Thanks Yann, they are very similar to Myosotis, same family. Everyone seems to have colourful gardens, I,m still looking for one and miss the plants.

Did you move house? Beeing without garden is something for sure i'll be sad. Despite i prefer hiking in nature, a quick access from the living room to a small piece of "recreated nature" is also appreciated.

[Maggi Young]

Leena,

I forgot to ask, is the forecast for temperature to be 4-6 Celsius warmer than average?

   I fear so, Robert - we in  Europe and the  UK  commonly use the  Celsius scale  rather than Fahrenheit.

[Leena]

Leena,
I forgot to ask, is the forecast for temperature to be 4-6 Celsius warmer than average?

Yes, like Maggi already wrote. I'm not used to this kind of heat, and I can't do anything outside during the day when it is close to 30C, only in the mornings and evenings. Maybe we people also are adapted to certain temperatures like plants:).
Here is a chart from the past 30 days in Helsinki (only in Finnish).

Robert, your lilies are wonderful, I especially liked L.pardalinum ssp wigginsii, and your hybrids are so nice! I agree that many times hybrids are much better garden plants than species, and growing your own from seeds adds that they are something special. When growing from seeds there are always surprises and something to look forward.

For some reason my garden seems to suit L.canadense, and also L.pardalinum likes it where it grows. I have mostly martagon lilies, and don't like so much asian hybrid lilies so I have only one orange asian lily which already grew in my grandmothers garden in the 50s. It has value because of it was hers. It would be interesting to grow more American lilies, but there are voles and lily beetles here, so it is always a risk to grow lilies.

[Leena]

Hi Leena, if you got them from the SRGC seed exchange they should be very like this, as I regularly donate seed of this one.

Mine is from Gabriela's seeds:).

Gabriela, I'm happy you got now rain and your plants look very fresh and good.
Delphinium fissum is interesting looking, almost something like Aconitum but very dense flower spikes. Very nice!

[cohan]

Nice to see what everyone has going on- some familiar plants and some very different from what could grow here!
We generally had more rain earlier than usual - our rainy time is late May through June, usu into July- it started more like mid-May this year, good mix of warm days and rain through most of June, with the Heat Dome that affected the Pacific coast of North American spilling over the mountains into Alberta also at the end of the month into July.
Here in west central Alberta, we got temps as high as 35C-not an all time record, but matches the old one, and far more days near/above 30 than we've had in a row in my memory; nights 13-17C-high for us, a few 12s per year are all we usually get. Not the 40C days 20C nights of other areas, but high for us as the house could use re-insulating , and of course no AC at home. Still, afternoons were always still nice for me to work outdoors, shade is always pleasant, toward the end of the spell we had good breezes/winds, and nights in the house still cooled off, even not as much as usual- basically several unpleasant hours in the house each evening.
We had rain right up until this weather, and again as soon as it broke a little, so no drought stress here, so far. I only did modest watering  a few days (mostly some pots, a bit on some veg beds, and a little cooling on a few alpine/woodland beds, which I can't say was even much needed by the plants, but also gives some moisture for insects). Here are a few randomly chosen flowering things, all July 05, it seems!

Allium cernuum- in the weird ways of modern life, this is a form from near Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump, Alberta, but I got eh seed from someone in France! There was a cool fly on it-







Allium insubricum, seed from forumist some years ago gets better each year!


 

[cohan]

Geranium swatense is in a somewhat overgrown, meadowy berm-- can't really appreciate it well in that spot- on the other hand, maybe it would be floppy on its own and better to see the intense pink flowers popping out of other foliage?



Hieracium intybaceum makes hundreds of flowers in a season, of a nice paler yellow that I really like. However I rarely get to see more than a couple at once fully open- I've realised that may be me, not the plant, since I think they open early in the day at a time I am almost never over where these plants are! This one has a mosquito visiting ( or was it just following me?). for some complex reason involving weather patterns this year and probably last (not because of a dry season, as it has not been) this has been the least mosquitoey year I can ever recall here.





Saussurea iodostegia is striking for its very nearly black flowers and attractive semi inflated bracts. This year flowers seem scattered, maybe need some good weeding around main plants, but on the plus side there are a number of seedlings around. I think all 3 species in this post came from seed from the same forumist years ago!