Floating gardens, simple hydroponics with living soil for difficult plants

[partisangardener]

A simple way to place a netting is to stick 4 to 6 thin pipes (metal, plastic or bamboo)into the ground.
Cut some half-rings out of bracing wire (I use 3,8 mm) and stick it in the tubes
This is an easy framework for a netting.
I fix it at three sides with some hooks (metal or sticks from the hedge)
The front part is weighed down with some metal rod for easy access.

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Trillium grandiflorum flowers now on two of the rafts. Cypripedium reginae has recovered from the dividing.
I have cross-pollinated all of them.
Last year some mouse or so  stole the fruits. But the seedlings from the year before have already their second leaf.

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From Cypripedium acaule is one back.

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Reginae still going strong after the division.

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My latest addition to the floating gardens are some D.majalis. Two groups living together with some pieces C.reginae.

I hope they will cope with the conditions. It is 40 days ago since I became them.

Cuttings from Daphne tangutica from last autumn lived till last week. As i removed them since they lost their leafs, there was no more roots visible.

Next time I use some of the few  calciferous islands I have now.

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Cypripedium acaule developed quite well. The other one next to it did not turn up.

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The bigger parts are set into square buckets, the same size as the original one.

Cypripedium reginae in this bucket is already 70 cm high.

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Cypripedium reginae on most islands. Apart from one island where I buried it too deep. After I dug it up it does not look too good. One bud rotted away and the other one looks quite bad too.
Maybe it recovers.
This single one looks perfect

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Lilium canadense (seeds 2021) grow their first leaf. The germiating bulbs were very small.
Leafs are quite big for these dwarf bulbs.

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Iris chrysographes will bloom soon in the new setting.

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A friend let me have some seeds from gladiolus palustris from his garden ex Königsbrunner heath near Augsburg.
Quite a lot germinated. One was quite different, all white leaf. After a week it turned light green.
Today I found on another Island a pure white one and another light green one.
I hope some of them will grow up.

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Iris chrysographes starts to flower on the Cypripedium tibeticum island.
Seedgrown more than a decade ago.

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Some more albinos of Gladiolus palustris seedlings.

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C.reginae starts to flower.

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Iris chrysographes shows its best