Flowering Now - May 2009

[maggiepie]

Brian, your aquilegia's spurs are amazing, what colour is the clematis you have growing with it, is it an integrifolia?

Mike, your clematis are gorgeous, I am hoping to get a flower from my Scottii this season.

John, I love your Ione Hecker Oxalis.

Paddy, the mountain laurel is absolutely gorgeous.

Gerd, your cornus is delightful, I wish I could grow them here.

Arisaema, your Meconopsis x cookei 'Old Rose' is lovely, is it difficult to grow?
I also really like the Meconopsis integrifolia.

Thanks everyone for such terrific pics, way too many to comment on but they are all appreciated.

[Gerdk]

Gerd; loevly pics! I wanted to ask, what kind of soil do you give your Rhodohypoxis?

Thank you! The Rhodohypoxis in the garden are growing in ordinary garden soil -
limefree in my region! They seem to be not very demanding concerning their requirements.

Gerd

[Gerdk]

Gerd, your cornus is delightful, I wish I could grow them here.

Helen,
You can't grow C. kousa? I always thought of it as being one of the most hardy
flowering dogwoods.

Maybe I am wrong?   

Gerd

[johnw]

K. latifolia is native to an area with quite hot, humid summers and no amount of overhead watering can provide quite the right growing conditions. I've never seen a specimen here worth  a second look.

The mountain laurels do well here in Nova Scotia where summers are cool and hot humid days rare. There are some venerable old specimens around town. One notable plant was planted in the late 1880's and is now 12 ft tall by 15 ft across. It flowers heavily every second year without any care whatsoever.

Kalmia latifolia takes along time to settle in here - about 5-7 years, sometimes longer.  In the interim they can be badly burned, then suddenly they settle in and grow off without care. They are on the top of the menu for deer unfortunately.  They abhor poor drainage and in this area prefer a drier site.

johnw     - 2 lectures by Malcolm McGregor here in the last 6 days. Great one last night. Hard to keep up with him after 11 pm and a few pints, he goes a mile a minute.

[Maggi Young]

2 lectures by Malcolm McGregor here in the last 6 days. Great one last night. Hard to keep up with him after 11 pm and a few pints, he goes a mile a minute.

Sounds like you have the genuine Malcolm McGregor there all right..... needs little sleep, can talk  ALL the legs off a table, never mind a donkey.....? Yup, that's the fella!! Give him my love!

[johnw]

the genuine Malcolm McGregor can talk the legs off a table

Maggi:  Well put.  They say he is a bit groggy on the morning but comes round fast.  The conversation takes many about faces, last night over beer with three other friends +MM:  Kew's rock garden and why it should be destroyed, high school sex manuals for NS schools, best hot pastrami sandwiches in NYC, Meconopsis pseudointegrifolia, Malaysian cuisine, English lumber available after the Great Storm of 86 shipped to Canada, reconstructing the Victorian greenhouse at Dublin BG, the merits of Annapolis Valley white wine, the Family Ericaceae, whipped cream versus creme fraiche, Rheum nobile culture, Thai poetry, many more now forgotten and on departure a 15 minute conversation with our anthropologist waiter at the Wooden Monkey on skeletal remains found on the Island of Flores and how pelvic bones there would fit structurally into remains found by the Leakeys. Head-spinning.  De-compressing at the moment.

johnw

[Maggi Young]

Dontcha just love him? One of the few folks I know who can out-talk me ....it's very refreshing!  
He should be a musician.... some sort of wind or brass instrument.... saxophone, maybe..... I'm sure he has mastered circular breathing.

[Lori S.]

A few things in bloom here...
Primula polyneura
Doronicum orientale
One of the first peonies in bloom here - an unknown seedling that came with a daylily years ago...
Dracocephalum nutans
Pulmonaria saccharata 'Dora Bielefeld'
Iris taurica
Polemonium pulcherrimum
Phlox subulata 'Emerald Blue'
Anemone nemorosa 'Vestal' - just thought this was an interesting shot!

[johnw]

Dontcha just love him? One of the few folks I know who can out-talk me ....it's very refreshing! 
He should be a musiican.... some sort of wind or brass instrument.... saxophone, maybe..... I'm sure he has mastered circular breathing.

Malcolm was lucky to see a large and secret native stand of Cypripedium arietinum at its peak of perfection while he was here. Something I have never seen.

johnw

[ranunculus]

Lovely images everyone.


Arrived back from an incredible and enchanting week in Olu Deniz (Western Turkey) this morning (of which much more later) to find Lamiophlomis rotata in flower in a 26ctm plastic pot in the garden.  A first flowering for me with this rare and beautiful plant.

Lamiophlomis rotata (Lamiaceae), a perennial medicinal herb, is endemic to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

Lamiophlomis rotata (Three images)

[Regelian]

The poppy is one of my own seedling, which I call 'Watermelon Tree', as it reblooms in late Summer with a branched scape of 6 or more flowers.  The colour is great in any case.  I am quite fond of these fleeting beauties and have a plant of Papaver bractescens that I simply cannot capture on film.  The colour is too deep a blood red.  It always comes out fuschia-red in fotos.

[Brian Ellis]

Brian, your aquilegia's spurs are amazing, what colour is the clematis you have growing with it, is it an integrifolia?

No clematis in sight Helen, the aquilegia was bought at the East Anglian AGS show - one of Cecilia Collers plants.

Jamie that 'Watermelon' is an absolute delight.

[maggiepie]

This is my absolute favourite poppy, heck, it is my only poppy so far, this is its third season.
It flowers the first year from seed.

Papaver anomalum `Album`

[Lvandelft]

Jamie, is it an orientale Hybrid? It is very nice.
Just seen and pictured about 20 older (and some newer) hybrids which are in the trade.
Your flower color is very special.

[Regelian]

Luit,

yes, it is an oriental.  It sort of appeared in the garden a few years ago from stray seed.  As I only have Papaver orientalis (seed raised plants in various colours) and P. bractescens, it should be from this group.  I had a thing for poppies when i first laid-out the garden some 10 years ago and simply got some seed from the RHS seed exchange.  Quite a few interesting plants have arisen over the years, but this is the only one that reblooms.  I had a beautiful ruffled mauve, but it disappeared one Winter.  Pity. Here a couple of others.