April in the Northern Hemisphere

[Robert]

This is an outstanding selection of Collinsia heterophylla var. heterophylla created from seed I gathered many years ago near our Placerville, California property.

My wife has been too busy to edit my mistakes. 

[Roma]

Robert, your Tulip could be a variety of Tulipa batalinii.  There are a number of named varieties.  This is 'Bright Gem' which has a touch of apricot but there are pure yellow selections.

[Akke]

Roma

Tulipa ‘Honky Tonk’ apparently is a T. batalinii cultivar, used your info to check, I’ll post pictures when it’s flowering.

Robert

Despite the challenging weather conditions your garden and plants look beautiful. Weather conditions here are going back to normal average, while Crocusses and Iris where early, Tulipa season is more as to be expected.


Dutch Tulipa humilis; ‘Red beauty’, Persian pearl’, ‘Violacea yellow base’ and ‘Odalisque’ in the back add colour to the big container.


Tulipa heweri in front is making an impression, T. Cretica, T. humilis pulchella rosea caerulea oculata, T. Schrenkii and T. Cretica ‘chania’ (maybe not Cretica at all) are ‘just’ being lovely as is T. Subbiflora in the middle of it.

What’s still missing is a slight buzzing of bees, maybe it’s just a case of wrong place, wrong time.

This one seemed to be resting on the Anemone (appenina? park).


At least this one is doing some work on Corydalis Solida (park).

The park is a good place to look a bit higher occasionally.

Some parts are getting colour.

Jasmin

First young birds have shown up in the park, unfortunately invasive ones.

[Yann]

First week of this month i spotted a very dark form of Iris unguicularis in the Peloponnese, all around these plants only common form.
The soil was quite different so i guess the chemistry operated.

[Yann]

Tulipa goulimyi in situ southernmost part of europe, Cape Tenaro (also know as Matapan) in Greece.

[Tomte]

A very beautiful form of this Iris indeed and very aesthetically captured Yann! The tulips, too, of course.

[Robert]

Roma,

Thank you very much for posting the information and photograph regarding Tulipa batalinii. Yes, based on your photograph Tulipa batalinii seems to match the specific tulip growing in our Sacramento garden. I will see if I can find a key to the Genus Tulipa and key out the plant next season when they are blooming again. Thank you again for your thoughtful posting.

Akke,

It is amazing what can be accomplished in a container garden. Sometimes your planters seem to contain only bulbous species, at other times a mixture of small perennial species and bulbs. Do you do succession planting in some of your plant containers?

Wild weather here in our part of California: Record heat, strong dry winds, and now much needed rainfall and snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The weather changes are keeping me busy in the garden.

[Akke]

Yann

Your pictures are beautiful and I. unguicularis and T. goulimyi are very lovely plants, very interesting to see chemistry at work.

Robert

The container garden is pretty new and still developing, in the short-lived vegetable garden a few annuals that were both liked by bees and good for the soil already found a place. As the vegetable plot was not available anymore and not much later the less-typical(northern?)-bulbs got my attention, gardening (r)evolved. Then I added a beginners collection of bulbs available and started to enjoy, even added a couple of small perennials(to combine), next year added more bulbs and started (mostly bulb) sowing. Succession planting/sowing annuals is planned as a new experiment this year,  started and thought of recently, got ‘some inspiration on some forum’😀. Logically spring will remain bulb season, more flowers in summer are welcome here as well, where Nemophila and Limnanthes managed to get my attraction themselves, Escholzia californica got a bit of assistence. 😜
 
Vegetable gardening at a very small scale.

At my neighbours’,  a very small (less then one cm across) potato is showing up, ‘left over crop’ from last year.

Naturalized Pseudofumaria Lutea.
Height about 1,90m. 

[Nik]

Caltha palustris, marsh marigold, in the woods nearby.

[Nik]

Sanguinaria canadensis, bloodroot, in the woods.

[Nik]

Pyrola americana, also in the woods. I found an area with hundreds, if not thousands of them.

[Nik]

In the yard, my variegated Sempervivum (a spontaneous mutation) has a very pleasant color this time of year.

[shelagh]

Roma T. batalanii Bright Gem is one of my favourites. We've had it  in the garden for years and no matter what changes we make it always comes up somewhere.

[Yann]

Caltha palustris, marsh marigold, in the woods nearby.

Caltha are not often grown in garden despite their adaptation to different soil types. They don't need be under water level year round.

[Nik]

Yann, you are right, but they really do enjoy water. In the wild they are always near streams. Our neighbors successfully grow them at the edge of their koi pond. I have not had luck with them, even though we have a stream in our front yard. (I have to admit, I have not tried hard.) Similar situation with Lobelia cardinalis, local to our area. It occasionally shows up in the yard but never thrives. That is why I grow it from seed in a pot placed in a bucket of water on our lower deck. It does amazing every year (up to 2m tall) and is a magnet for hummingbirds. We enjoy watching them from our living room.