April in the Northern Hemisphere

[ruweiss]

Winter came back yesterday, it seems, that my cousins Magnolia did not
like it so much. Hope, it does not too much harm to the other plants.

[MarcR]

ruweiss,

About 3 weeks ago we got about 83 cm of snow.  Shortly before that I had set out seedlings of 18 species of 9 genera of Iridaceae, including several South American species.  Almost all of them survived undamaged. Out of nearly 300 seedlings, I lost only 12. All 12 had others of the same specie that survived.  All things considered, it was no big loss.  It is my experience that plants tend to be surprisingly resilient.

[Diane Whitehead]

And your garden is automatically selecting for hardiness.

[Robert]

Extremely dry conditions continue in our part of Northern California. With record breaking high temperatures in the forecast for this coming week, we are spending a great deal of time watering and preparing for summer type weather conditions (June like) in early April. Temperatures in excess of 32 C are being forecasted for our area.



Small parts of our garden are coming back to life and are looking good. There is still much open space and rough areas that still need much attention, but progress is being made

Nemophila maculata with Erythranthe guttata.



Nemophila menziesii with Collinsia heterophylla. Pacific Coast Hybrid Iris are in the background.



Nemophila menziesii with Pansies, Salvia ‘Bee’s Bliss’, Nicotinia ‘Pricilla’, and Wallflower.



Phacelia campanularia, Erythranthe guttata, and Collinsia heterophylla.



Pacific Coast Iris with Erythranthe guttata.

[Robert]

At 3 meters in height, Azalea Idi’s Laugh dominates our backyard.



This is one of my favorite selections of Rhododendron austrinum.



Calochortus season has started. Calochortus albus is blooming with Triteleia laxa in the background.



Calochortus amabilis grown from seed I gathered in Colusa County, California.



Calochortus monophyllus grown from seed gathered in El Dorado County, California continues to bloom.

[Robert]

Iris tenuissima is well established in our garden.



Gilia tricolor ssp. tricolor



Research and development of new plant varieties is progressing well. This is an F2 Ranunculus hybrid. These new hybrids are the starting point toward predetermined goals. There are generally happy accidents along the way too.



Ranunculus occidentalis var. occidentlais is being tested in a garden setting. The seeds of this perennial species were planted in the autumn of 2021 and are blooming ~ 6 months later.



Akke,

This is Tulipa humilis as purchased at a local garden center about 10 years ago. It does not look like any photograph of Tulipa humilis that I have ever seen. Do you have any comments or ideas? Sadly we are at the end of the commercial bulb distribution chain. Unfortunately in our area, mislabeled and low quality bulbs are frequently encountered. We do have many fine native bulbous species, so this more than makes up for the deficiencies in commercial locally available bulbs. I guess I could purchase via mail order, but I admit that I like to see what I am purchasing and ask questions about the plants when necessary. I am not unhappy with the situation, but things are the way they are.

Akke,

I also have an update on the status of wild populations of Limnanthes in our area. Currently, small populations of Limnanthes alba are blooming in seasonally moist areas near our Placerville, California property. Most of these populations are on private property, so I cannot photograph the plants or even stop and look at them. Later in the season, other populations of Limnanthes alba will come into bloom at higher elevations. The last stand of frequently seen and easily accessible Limnanthes douglasii in our area is now taped with orange development tape and will be lost forever. There are other populations of this species in our area, however they are less accessible and require additional driving to see.

[Robert]

I will finish this posting with one last garden scene. Prunus mume is in a training container planted with Pansies, Nemophila menziesii, and Collinsia heterophylla.

[ruweiss]

Marc,
thank you for the report of your climatic and growing
conditions. It is always interesting to read, how gardeners
do their best with the culture of 'difficult' plants.

Robert,
thank you again for presenting us again these beautiful pictures.

[MarcR]

And your garden is automatically selecting for hardiness.

Dianne,

The seedlings I lost suffered crush damage not cold damage. In most cases the snow fell evenly around and over the; thus keeping them from being flattened.

[Akke]

Rudi

Thanks for showing the lovely plants. Hopefully they’re allright and didn’t suffer from the late snow.

Weather over here has turned ‘normal’ again, short autumn arrived for a change of season, spring is expected though.

Robert

The way you combine plants is really inspiring, it will take time to get to know the drawing materials before being able to make a good picture.
Azalea Ida’s laugh looks great between the green leaves topped with a blue sky, -oops, something went wrong- but you might prefer our grey clouds. Growing season has slowed down because of the weather conditions here, lots of buds appearing, only Narcissus rupicola ssp watieri opened up in the last few days.

More lovely plants to look forward to, including some Tulipa humilis (cultivars/selections) between white and purplish/reddish, nothing like this.  I cannot say that I’m hundred percent sure, but I love T humilis and have done some more digging in the past as well, your Tulipa isn’t like it, it looks lovely however. Maybe someone, with more experience, on the Tulipa subject can take away the last one percent of doubt.
Understandable that you prefer to see what you buy, in my experience so far the problem wasn’t the quality of the bulbs, but of our postal service.

Thanks for the update on Limnanthes alba and douglasii, seedlings of L. douglasii that have shown up here, didn’t even care about the snow. I was also very pleased to see more of your Calochortus of course .

Shelagh

Don’t worry to much about pictures, your plants and ‘weeds’ look lovely.

[Akke]

This was a lucky one.while the sun was setting, it was a close up for my neighbour to show the tulip buds as he can’t get really close.

Left Scilla Siberica and Chionodoxa are still flowering, Fritillaria meleagris is hiding a bit. Right Tulipa Cretica (dutch, sources say this isn’t Cretica) and T. humilis clones (dutch again). Grown up Frittelaria meleagris and uva-vulpis didn’t fit in, but they have two and three flowers now, I hope this means they like their treatment and it’s not a desperate attempt to sow.

This is container two, it’s been filling up over the past few weeks as well (container one just ignored winter, flowers and lots of foliage continually), they are both at my neighbours’ and lasagne style.

[Mike Ireland]

Plants flowering in the garden.
Anemonella thalictroides Kikuzaki
Jeffersonia dubia
Trillium camschatcence Nemuro
Trillium kurabayashii & Anemone ranunculoides fl. pl.
Trillium kurabayashii seedlings with Corydalis solida red, pink, lilac & white forms.

[Mike Ireland]

More from the garden & alpine house.
Erythronium Pagoda
Fritillaria meleagris
Lewisia tweedyi x 2

[Robert]

We have experienced some wild swings in our Northern California weather over the last 5 days. First we had three days with record, to near record high temperatures. Then the weather turned cooler with strong desiccating north wind. The relative humidity was so low that ice in a glass did not form condensation on the outside of the glass. Instead sublimation took place and the ice turned directly to vapor! Needless to say, a great deal of time was spent watering the garden.

Now the skies are overcast and there has been some light rain. Not enough to do any good, but at least I do not have to race out and water plants to keep them alive. More rain and snow is forecasted, as well as below average temperatures. We will see what happens. More precipitation will be welcome.



Despite being thrashed around by the strong winds, enduring record heat, and now some rain our garden faired well.



The Cornus kousa x florida hybrids are quite beautiful and do well in our garden. This is the cultivar named ‘Stardust’.



Azalea ‘Raspberry’ is a good pink from back in the days when I bred Azaleas.



This hybrid Azalea is a good bright orange with a very compact growth habit.



This is a nice yellow Azalea from my ‘Tatiana’ grex. This selection has a very compact growth habit and is extremely floriferous.

[Robert]

Early on in my Azalea breeding, I bred some huge plants (not intentionally). ‘Pink Night Life’ is a towering Rhododendron occidentale hybrid. It blooms prolifically and is extremely heat tolerant.



Azalea ‘White Night Life’ is a sister seedling of ‘Pink Night Life’. It too grows very large, blooms prolifically, and is very heat tolerant.



We grow many selections of Rhododendron kiusianum in our garden. They all seem to thrive despite our hot, dry summer weather.



Rhododendron kiusianum var. sataense blooms profusely each spring.



Diplacus aurantiacus seeds around our garden freely. In this photograph it is blooming in a container that it shares with our California native dwarf Oak, Quercus durata var. durata.