Winter slowly releases its grip...

[Lori S.]

This site may give a pretty good idea of the sempervivum species that people are growing locally.
http://www.parkland-perennials.com/cat/section.php?id=10&sc=0&start=50

Cohan, what sorts of outdoor gardening did you do at your previous location?

Was crassula in a previous year's catalogue at Beaver Creek?  I looked but didn't find it.  (I'm not deeply interested in succulents, but was curious what species was offered.)  I have found various sedums that are not particularly hardy here, and to my disappointment,  I have not been able to winter over Chiastophyllum oppositifolium , despite a couple of tries.

[Sinchets]

Well hopefully tomorow I will find out if the Aloinpsis pulled through the last lot of snow. I have a fairly shocked looking Fritillaria raddeana which grew to about 15cm in the week between the snows here- we had a hard frost last night and the snow around it had melted. I know it takes frost, but i hope it still looks at least slightly photogenic

[Maggi Young]

Simon, have a look in the Bulb Log Index to find Frit. raddeana looking flattened and completely awful , having been knocked down by frost  when grown outside in a pot for several years...... and then bouncing back upright again!  Ian took pity on the poor thing last year and planted it out in the garden..... the buds are showing.... I plan to photograph it just as soon as  the lashing sleet and wind stops!

[cohan]

This site may give a pretty good idea of the sempervivum species that people are growing locally.
http://www.parkland-perennials.com/cat/section.php?id=10&sc=0&start=50
Cohan, what sorts of outdoor gardening did you do at your previous location?
Was crassula in a previous year's catalogue at Beaver Creek?  I looked but didn't find it.  (I'm not deeply interested in succulents, but was curious what species was offered.)  I have found various sedums that are not particularly hardy here, and to my disappointment,  I have not been able to winter over Chiastophyllum oppositifolium , despite a couple of tries.

i have looked at parkland, lori, i think it was your recommendation last year, or i may have found them in some search, as well; they do have a couple of interesting things (i know semps arent parkland's focus, so i am not criticising them): , but overall, i have found very few north american sources for semps that are very interesting ;i should qualify that-- i have no interest in  hybrids or cultivars -of semps or anything else(although, no real purist, i will buy an occasional no name locally); i find geographical forms (preferably with location data) most interesting, and while several  north american vendors offer some (and probably some really nice ones) its the same half dozen over and over again, mostly amid long lists of cultivars..
i was actually pleased to see that cavendish semps in ontario has an expanded list of natural forms, this year, and i hope to order from them....
http://www3.sympatico.ca/semps/index.html
beyond that, there are european growers with dozens of geographical forms--i dont expect to grow hundreds of semps, but it would be nice not to have just the same 6 every NA vendor has...lol

i have not had anyplace to garden outdoors significantly since leaving here in 1982! i lived in edmonton for many years, and toronto for the 10 previous to moving back here in 2007, with a year in mtl and some travelling in the middle; i was always right downtown in either apartments or parts of houses, with little or no outdoor space, not even balconies; i did have a big yard once in edmonton, but it was only one season, and a few outdoor pots in a couple of places in toronto, and at the last place i had one outdoor bed--maybe2 x 6 feet, where i grew a few perennials, natives and annuals--but besides being small, it was right on a fairly busy sidewalk, so nothing valuable could go there!
the best of it was a large group of milkweeds that scented the whole area in flower...

the crassula was in the beavercreek listing not too long ago--i'm quite sure it was there since the last official update in august; probably at some point it sold out so they took it off the list; there was no species name listed...

what sedums have not been hardy for you? there are lots that should be, i think, but its such a huge genus(well, according to some it has been divided up..), with wide range of hardiness..
i have a no name--probably some spurium (now Phedimus spurius, i think), pink flowered, from a cutting i got from a motel in british columbia  that was one of the very few plants i had here before leaving that actually survived! i'll be trying to give it some more room to breathe this summer..

[Sinchets]

For Maggi- the Fritillaria raddeana looked like boiled cabbage first thing this morning- but the sun was shining all day and it seems to be recovered now. 
Lori and Cohan- the Aloinopsis spathulata was revealed today and seems to have grown a few new leaves under the snow- looking forward to its first flowering sometime soon.

[cohan]

For Maggi- the Fritillaria raddeana looked like boiled cabbage first thing this morning- but the sun was shining all day and it seems to be recovered now. 
Lori and Cohan- the Aloinopsis spathulata was revealed today and seems to have grown a few new leaves under the snow- looking forward to its first flowering sometime soon.

good news all around! the aloinopsis is really nice--i cant remember if you or lori mentioned before--did you grow from seed or get plants, and where from?

[Sinchets]

The Aloinopsis is about 9 months old from seed I bought from Alplains- I'm excited about it as I have never grown a perennial member of this family from seed before. I've got some Zone 4 and 5 cacti growing from seed which I hope to transplant into this bed soon too.

[cohan]

The Aloinopsis is about 9 months old from seed I bought from Alplains- I'm excited about it as I have never grown a perennial member of this family from seed before. I've got some Zone 4 and 5 cacti growing from seed which I hope to transplant into this bed soon too.

wow! thats good growth for 9 months!

[Lori S.]

I got seeds for mine from Alplains too.

[Sinchets]

wow! thats good growth for 9 months!

We have a long growing season here winter the past 3 years hasn't really hit hard until December- so some of the Astragalus and Oxytropis that germinated in the spring flowered in the November of their first year. I read that the Aloinopsis needed vernalising to flower so it really should have had that by now. I have quite a few Penstemon that seem to have bulked up well for 9month old babies and look forward to seeing them do the business this year.

[Lori S.]

The sedums I'm thinking of that have not proved hardy here for me are Sedum spathulifolium 'Silvermoon', and S. tetractinum 'Coral Reef' and 'Capo Blanco'.    (By the way, don't take my experiences as the end-all, Cohan... it may be that someone else is growing things successfully that I failed with, by providing better conditions - you should just try whatever it is you are interested in.  Plus, you never know... I might be a serial plant killer, LOL!)

Changing the subject entirely... penstemons are a favourite group of mine (and the conditions here are very good for them), and I'm expanding into more oxytropis and astragalus as well.  Simon, are you growing the North American species of oxytropis and astragalus or the European/Asian ones?

Here are a couple of my faves, which are also native plants, though grossly underappreciated  They are perfectly behaved for the garden, and long-lived.
Penstemon nitidus - the earliest penstemon to bloom here.  They grow in the clay exposures along the river here in the city, as well as into the foothills.  These are out in our planted boulevard, etc..  The second photo shows how early they bloom - the rest of the  yard is still barren at that time.
Oxytropis splendens - I adore these!

And, by the way, there were 13 robins in the yard tonight when I got home.

So, Simon, I am eagerly awaiting photos and description of your Lamiaceae collection!  Are they all alpine, or from a wider range of habitats?  I have a few that I love as well!

[cohan]

    (By the way, don't take my experiences as the end-all, Cohan... it may be that someone else is growing things successfully that I failed with, by providing better conditions - you should just try whatever it is you are interested in.  Plus, you never know... I might be a serial plant killer, LOL!)

Changing the subject entirely... penstemons are a favourite group of mine (and the conditions here are very good for them), and I'm expanding into more oxytropis and astragalus as well.  Simon, are you growing the North American species of oxytropis and astragalus or the European/Asian ones?

i know there are variations between and within gardens that affect survival, nevermind a distance and climate distance such as that between us! however, since i am starting from scratch, really, anything that may have a little doubt cast on its hardiness will just move down the list a bit farther..

penstemons are great---there are a number of natives i have seen on offer, and i was thinking of a couple miniatures from beaver creek to accompany some pediocactus i hope to get...

[cohan]

We have a long growing season here winter the past 3 years hasn't really hit hard until December- so some of the Astragalus and Oxytropis that germinated in the spring flowered in the November of their first year.

thats a much better growing season than us! of course it varies year to year, but we can have early frosts by mid august, and although we can get some really nice weather in september, we can also be getting some very chilly nights;
the pot of semps and armeria i mentioned before was potted up in early august, and they seemed to get settled well, and the armeria flowered in october, but the semps were closing up tight by then....

[Sinchets]

The Penstemons I have are all from Alplains and Ron Ratko- I have quite a few from zones 4 to 6. Most should flower this year, but Pp.pseudospectabilis, globosus, ambiguus and rupicola x fruticosus all flowered in the first year from seed. The Astragalus and Oxytropis are mainly North American as they are more readily available, but i do have some European, Turkish and Middle eastern species as well. Astragalus utahensis was flowering here in November as the first snows were falling 6 months from seed. By the way we have snow again today. 

[Lori S.]

Penstemon is a genus where hardiness seems to be generally underestimated... one of those where intolerance of wet has been mistaken for lack of cold hardiness.  This has however been generally corrected by the zone assessments of Alplains and Beaver Creek.  (My sense is that I don't generally agree with the statement that Beaver Creek's zone estimations are overestimations - I think it comes down to conditions - but I would like to do a larger accounting of that before I start proclaiming it loudly.)  Still, though, the large number of species that is hardy here suggest that even the more accurate estimations are still generally underestimations.