Plants flowering in the open rock garden.April May '09

[Sinchets]

Just some plants in the alpine garden:
Oxytropis splendens
Salvia cyanescens
Taraxacum leucanthum
and an Aubrietia grown from AGS seed A.deltoides (?)

[Carlo]

Unless I'm mistaken, Taraxacum leucanthum should be white, no?

[Sinchets]

Well you'd think so yes- actually in real life it's a more buttercream yellow than it is in the pic. I was hoping it would be paler.  I once grow T.pamiricum,  which was pale pink and very attractive.

[Rodger Whitlock]

Taraxacum albidum is really white, with some yellow in the very center of the flower. Japanese in origin.

I've grown it outside for years, but have never seen even a single volunteer, though the seed germinates well if collected and pot-sown.

IOW, not a weed.

I amuse myself with dreams of a lawn spangled with dandelions in differnent colors, to the consternation of all who behold it.

I'll try to get a photograph of the next flower to open (if there is one!).

[Sinchets]

This one, T.leacanthum, is from 3800m altitude in the Pamir Mountains (according to source) I am not sure whether it will be a selfsowing problem and the flowers are not what i was expecting, but it did spend its winter rest with a fascinating rosette of fleshy red leaves. T.pamiricum was a very small beauty, which I kept going for a while from seed. Sadly the year it died it did so before it had flowered. I think I am like you, I like growing them (dandelions) for the quirkiness of growing 'weeds'.

[Sinchets]

We were out 'botanising' yesterday. So today's offerings combine plants which began flowering yesterday as well as today.
An Astragalus species- from Lake Salda in Turkey
Delphinium decorum- usually taller but it has been a dry Spring
Oxytropis tianschanica
Penstemon aridus
Erysimum caricum
Astragalus ceramicus filifolius
Vania campylophylla
and Erysimum atticum

[Gerry Webster]

Just some plants in the alpine garden:
Oxytropis splendens
Salvia cyanescens
Taraxacum leucanthum
and an Aubrietia grown from AGS seed A.deltoides (?)

Simon - is that a Vine Weevil on your Taraxacum? If here, it would be rather early in the year for this pest.

[Sinchets]

No sorry to disappoint, it is just one of a large number of ground bugs (family Lygaeidae) we get in the garden. It comes with the territory in a new garden I suppose. 

[Paul T]

I love the first Astragalus species, and the Oxytropis.  Great pics.

[Sinchets]

Thanks Paul, I always think that Astragalus and Oxytropis are underused in Rock gardens.

[Paul T]

I've never seen an actual Astragalus myself, and had never heard of Oxytropis until someone posted a pic of a nice purple one recently.  Are they something that isn't common/available, or just something that isn't fashionable at the moment?  So many of the pea family are spectacular, but we really don't see that many of them in our gardens (well not here in Aus anyway).

[Gerdk]

Well you'd think so yes- actually in real life it's a more buttercream yellow than it is in the pic. I was hoping it would be paler.  I once grow T.pamiricum,  which was pale pink and very attractive.

This one?

Acquired yesterday at a plant sale in the Grugapark Essen.

Gerd

[Sinchets]

They were never very common at nurseries in Britain, but I managed to find a few a various 'members' stands at AGS shows- it was then that I became hooked. I think they have a repututation for being difficult, I am not sure if this is because they are said not to like root disturbance. I have never tried moving one so I don't know.
Mine are all from seed now- some are doing better than others, but I have species from Turkey, Asia and North and South America that have all over-wintered happily outside- and seem happy so far too.  
I keep trying with some of the more esoteric ones such as Astragalus asclepiadoides. I have a one year old bush of Anarthrophyllum cummingii from seed, which seems okay so far- if it lives longer enough to flower here it will be champagne time for me  
I am currently working on extending the rock gardens, in the hope of having a larger area for true xerics.
If I could garden with Australian members of the family, I am not sure I would know where to stop. Australia is a real treasure trove for this family isn't it.

[Sinchets]

That looks similar Gerd. Is it pinker in real life? The oneI had held its flowers closer to the rosette, but that may have been because I was cruel to it at the time and grew it in a pot 

[Paul T]

We do seem to have a lot of Fabaceae here in Aus.  I've post a few at times in the Australian Natives at the ANBG thread, but that is really a fraction of what I see, even just at the ANBG.  We get a lot of the little "bacon and eggs" types locally, including Oxylobium, Dyllwinia etc apparantlly, although I never get a chance to go bushwalking to have a look for them in the wild.  Would love to see some of these things in their own environment if I get the time.  And that is just locally..... so many others in so many different areas and niches.  Amazing variety.