Flowering Now - June 2009

[cohan]

Some pics from the last week below:
Corydalis aff. shihmienensis - very fragrant, short lived but reliably self-seeding.
Geranium maculatum 'Elizabeth Ann'
Paeonia rockii hybrid
Paeonia delavayi
Aconitum septentrionale
Nomocharis saluenensis
Nomocharis species
Paeonia 'Buckeye Belle'
Lilium lophophorum
Stellera chamaejasme

nice stuff--the cory is really choice, as is the lilium, and great together!

[Lesley Cox]

John, is that Lil. mackliniae the same as the dark form of which you sent me seed? I do hope so. and I LOVE the flowers on the Salix. Such a varied genus, I wish many more smallish ones were available here.

[johnw]

John, is that Lil. mackliniae the same as the dark form of which you sent me seed? I do hope so. and I LOVE the flowers on the Salix. Such a varied genus, I wish many more smallish ones were available here.

Lesley  - The seed came from Finn Haugli in Tromso and was labelled good dark pink.  Finn orders alot from Gelndoick and they appear to be the source of the dark form so I am assuming yes we may have lucked out and got the good one or at least op seed of it.

johnw.

[Maggi Young]

But, many plants will not flower the year following seed setting. Or for more than a season following profuse seed setting. And wild plants do not flower every year.

And, in the Netherlands commercial bulb producers trim flowers to avod them setting seed.

In the Netherlands they cut the flowers off for many reasons, and stopping seed is just one, I believe. Of course, they want to get the bulb foliage died down and the bulbs ready to harvest as soon as possible to prepare for their selling season.
It is true that in the wild many plants will not flower every year, that is why hybrids can be so useful in cultivation to enable plants which will flower reliably every year, such as in rhododendrons, for instance, where hybrids can m often flower very well every year without pause.  Plants in cultivation are quite another matter: in captivity we can give extra food and water to a plant to support it while it makes seed ; this is something that some growers seem not to do. For herbaceous plants it is often not needed to have them seed , because vegetative propagation is an option, but when they do seed it is good to give them extra attention at this time to "keep their strength up".
Should anyone doubt that extra care and food is needed to a "mother" plant.... look at a poor animal which has borne and nursed a litter of young without proper nourishment.... the creature will be a scruffy wreck..... then compare an animal that has been given full and proper feeding .... a diffferent sight altogether..... the difference in condition in a plant after seeding may not be so obvious as in an animal, but it remains that both plant and beast will benefit from extra care and regain their previous state of health faster in that way. I do believe that it is possible more often than not to boost a plant during and after seeding to minimise weakness.

[Lesley Cox]

I can only echo the others' comments Anne Karin, a superb and lovely garden in a magnificent setting. Every one of your plants looks so strong and healthy too. Thanks for sharing with us.

[Lesley Cox]

Anne that is a stunning garden.
By the way is that a lake or a fjord?
Göte

It is a fjord. The "Hardangerfjord". About 100 km southeast of Bergen.

And yes it is a very nice place.

Presumably that's the origin of the embroidery?

[Lori S.]

1) Incarvillea mairei var. grandiflora
2, 3) One of our native lupins, Lupinus sericeus.  It has a very unusual habit for a lupin - it sends out yellow, lateral rhizomes to start new plants (rather like Hemerocallis fulva).  (One would think this would be a noteable characteristic, but I only recall a single reference inferring anything about it.)
4) Paeonia peregrina 'Sunshine', opened today.
5) Geranium farreri.
6) Trollius pumilus.
7). Trollius x cultorum 'Cressida'.
8 ). First sempervivum in bloom, 'Excalibur', I think, with surprisingly large flowers.
9).  Another native plant, Viola canadensis... it's somewhat spreading in the garden, and, oddly, prone to mildew later on.

[Lesley Cox]

Philadelphus 'Belle etoile' is my most favourite of all. She is beautiful of course, but her scent is to diw for. I have been known to wake with the scent still in my nose, from DREAMING about it!

[cohan]

9).  Another native plant, Viola canadensis... it's somewhat spreading in the garden, and, oddly, prone to mildew later on.

Viola canadensis is in flower here too, and i have found many pinkish floewrs in the population where i photographed the pinkish flowers last year, so it must be a characteristic of those plants...

[gote]

2, 3) One of our native lupins, Lupinus sericeus.  It has a very unusual habit for a lupin - it sends out yellow, lateral rhizomes to start new plants (rather like Hemerocallis fulva).  (One would think this would be a noteable characteristic, but I only recall a single reference inferring anything about it.)

That is because taxonomists so often work from herbaria and have little experience of the plant in real life.
Göte

[Lvandelft]

Just re-found this thread which went off my radar three weeks ago!

Luit, if you can, try D. 'Inchriach Dazzler' again but take some cuttings each year after it has flowered. None of the D. neglectus (pavonius)forms is very long lived but they can be kept going with regular propagation.

That might be so Lesley, but I have some different views about that.
All my life my aim has been to produce (and sell) strong, healthy and long living plants.
During the last 5 years I have been planting numerous plants in the garden and on my raised beds. Many of them are plants which I wanted to test, now that I have the time to do so.
If a plant leaves me after one or two years, this plant will probably not like the place where I put it, so I consider if I have another place for it and if not, I don’t try again.
If I can keep such a short living plant alive in my garden only by taking every year some cuttings and produce a new plant, then this plant does not accord to my point of view.

There are many gardeners who don’t want to loose their plants at all costs and are proud to show their skills how many years they kept their plants going.
I definitely don’t belong to this category  , which does not mean that I don’t respect different views.

[Lesley Cox]

Well Luit, that's a very valid argument and in general, I too wouldn't bother to replace plants which consistently died or failed to thrive. But if one really likes a particular plant, it's reason enough to propagate. You are to be commended for selling strong, healthy, long-lived plants. A great pity this is not necessarily the policy of every plant seller.

I had a friend once who each year sold many young Lewisia cotyledon plants to a local garden centre. They resold them to people who just liked the colours and had little idea of how to grow them. My friend thought they were a great plant for him to sell because so many buyers lost them and returned for another, then or the following year. But after a couple of years people got the message and didn't bother any more.

[Sinchets]

Flowering now a selection of Delphinium grandiflorum from different sources.
The first is 'pure' Delphinium grandiflorum (UME49 for Goteborg BG).
Second and third, the normal blue and the albinoe forms from the garden variety sold as Delphinium grandiflorum 'Amour'.
Fourth, one of my generation 'X' from plants and seeds I have bought as Dd chinense, tatsiense and even 'beesianum' from a variety of sources.

[Tony Willis]

some philadelphus and deutzia out at the moment. The bees are loving them.

[David Nicholson]

Lovely pictures Tony. Do you prune your Deutzias after they have flowered at all?