Flowering now- July 2009

[Sinchets]

Do tell, Cohan. What tiny and weird things from SA do you have? Have a few pots of newly germinated Stapeliads here- can't wait for that heady aroma of death 

[Paul T]

Cohan,

A lot of us here I think like anything small and unusual collecting-wise.  I love miniature flowers, which is why I am always collecting small bulbs and unusual perennials that don't take up so much space.    I've mentioned before that I am thankful that my wife also obviously collects strange and unusual things..... otherwise she never would have collected ME! 

Arne,

Love the Deinanthe.  Lovely delicate pink to the flowers.

[Lori S.]

"I was surprised that you mention a form of Camp. barbata as being perennial... "
Well,  I started that batch from seed in 2005; they started to bloom in 2006, and I still have the original plants, so they are getting on in years for what is usually said to be a biennial species... ?    (I've grown other biennials where certain individuals did not bloom in the second year, and so carried on for at least another year, but the C. barbata bloomed as one would expect.)  Again, I can only attribute it to our short season, somehow.

6) Linum flavum compactum

I had one of his seedlings for years, but it finally succumbed to summer drought (or perhaps winter wet!). Its color is very strong and if you are sensitive to color harmonies the plant needs to be sited carefully.

Rodger, it is lucky I have never been hampered by any particular sensitivity to colour harmonies, LOL!    I got the seeds many years ago from Kristl's Gardens North, and have had them growing happily in the border ever since.  I will certainly collect seeds later, and would be happy to send you some, if you would be interested in another go at them?  

Re: Verbascums- there is a very nice albino of V.rorippifolium, with pink centred white flowers. The name means it has leaves like a Rorippa which is a genus of yellowcress. The leaves look similar, but I think it is one of those botanists running out of ideas things.

Yes, I think it is named for the similarity of the leaves to Rorippa.... cress like brassica plants.... but I think that Lori had the correct spelling as Verbascum roripifolium    

While I was trying to research V. roripifolium, I did run across references to Rorippa, but the apparent(?) difference in spelling threw me off!  Very interesting, Simon and Lesley, and thank you for the authoritative info, Maggi!

Nothing of great note here on a rainy day (3 cm, lovely)... Now some warm weather would be nice!
1) Iris sintenisii
2, 3) The martagon lilies are finally starting to bloom... Lilium martagon and 'Album'
4) "Mutt" dephiniums (i.e. self-seeded)... I find the luminosity of the blues and purples, and the variety of the "bees" in the centers of the flowers quite interesting - white, black, bee-like, etc.!
5) Siberian iris cultivar... with the amount of time I spend on plant records, it baffles me why don't I have the cultivar name noted...  
6) Last spent blossom on Geranium farreri
7, 8 ) Pretty berries on our native Actaea rubra... in transition, and ripe.
9, 10) A heuchera with very showy flowers, 'Magic Wand'
 
 

[Lori S.]

1) Eryngium alpinum, just starting to take on a hint of blue...
2) Penstemon barbatus coccineus 'Iron Maiden'... I once had an absolutely incredible specimen of this, with dozens of flower stems.  What were we doing then that we aren't doing now?  
3) Diervilla lonicera, a mildy-suckering shrub that is native to southeastern Saskatchewan and eastwards.  We find the bronzed leaves rather attractive... and there is not a huge selection of shrubs that are interesting, hardy and chinook-tolerant that can be grown here, unfortunately.
4) Gentiana lutea, just starting out on a good bloom year!
5) Thalictrum 'Black Stockings'
6) Calamintha grandiflora
7) Lonicera 'Dropmore Scarlet', climbing the cat pen.
8 ) More Penstemon barbatus... they're everywhere!    (Or at least I assume that's what they are... should try to key them out, though I'm afraid they might be some hybrid from years of self-seeding, impossible to neatly determine, and then I'll be put off it forever...  )

[Ragged Robin]

Your garden is really growing lush with lovely plantings, Lori......  for instance the Delphiniums are gorgeous en masse and I love the G. lutea - the leaves are a wonderful colour and shape - and the L. Dropmore Scarlet and.....and....Thalictrum 'Black Stockings'....and..I need a cup of tea to come back for more!

[cohan]

simon and paul---well this is probably way OT for this thread! i'm really just beginning with the really interesting SA stuff--i got a batch of seed from SA last fall, and had dismal results--i would have assumed it was me, but several friends got seed at the same time, and some of them had poor results as well, depending on what we'd ordered; i still have a few tiny Massonia jasminiflora from that, and hopefully a couple of Rhadamanthus (a similar tiny bulbous thing) hanging on--very newbie at working out watering of these things with very specific seasonality and obviously very different from my climate; no-shows from seed were ornithogalum, bulbine, haworthia, ledebouria, eriospermum etc--all miniature species...

i have quite a few haworthias, gasterias and some other succulents, though most of those are fairly common things; i do like stapeliads too--esp small ones, many are too big for my indoor space; dont have much now--an Orbea umbomboensis that flowered nicely in spring; like Ceropegias too, just a couple of those..  have a few miniature aloes, also, A aristata in flower now;would like to get some of the small Sansevieria sp

 i had two Eriospermum (you may already know all this)--an odd genus, maybe family (one of those ex-lily groups) typically with one little odd leaf at a time, and a flower spike while not in leaf; true leaves of some species are small with projections called enations from the leaf surface so that they can look like highly divided leaves, quite odd... well, i killed one tiny tuber i got, and the other made its one leaf--a tiny hairy thing, will make enations when its older--last fall, and its just dried up now when i checked..this is the tricky time, i guess--they dont necessarily want to be totally dry, but mostly dry, while dormant; in theory it could flower now sometime while dormant, if its old enough; i'm growing the tuber raised, and its fat and healthy looking...



so thats the kind of thing i am interested in, plus conophytum, but i dont have any of those yet.. i'd like to try more seed this fall, but not sure where to get good stuff with locality data preferred (not imperative) after last year's not cheap fiasco...

[cohan]

lori---lots of great things as always;
i dont comment on the penstemons as they are all great... do you grow any of the tiny mat species? cant remmeber now if you have showed... i was thinking when i eventually get some pediocactus, a small penstemon would be great with them...

i like the diervilla a lot, i'm into the native shrubs in general--we have most of the locals in the yard on their own account, but taking snippets of other things when i come across them...
like the little geranium, too..

[Stephenb]

"I was surprised that you mention a form of Camp. barbata as being perennial... "
Well,  I started that batch from seed in 2005; they started to bloom in 2006, and I still have the original plants, so they are getting on in years for what is usually said to be a biennial species... ?    (I've grown other biennials where certain individuals did not bloom in the second year, and so carried on for at least another year, but the C. barbata bloomed as one would expect.)  Again, I can only attribute it to our short season, somehow.

My Campanula barbata also thinks it's a perennial, now into its third year. I looked it up in my Norwegian flora and it states there that it is perennial.

[Anthony Darby]

At last Iris ensata 'Laughing Lion' has decided to flower, having had last year off.

[Anthony Darby]

Every autumn my double pink opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) seeds around the rockery. I usually pull most of them out, but this year I have several large clumps. One has produced a different flower. I also have the annual red poppy (P. rhoeas) which has also appeared on some ground disturbed by the Water Board.

[Anthony Darby]

I have had this tiny Myosotis sp. (Eyre Mountains, New Zealand) for a couple of years. This week it has its first flower.

[Lori S.]

Beautiful flowers, Anthony!  I love the foliage on that myosotis.   The unusual poppy looks a lot like 'Danebrorg Laced'... ?

[Paul T]

Cohan,

I can't comment on the succulents, but the Ornithogalum and Bulbine may take longer to germinate anyway.  I find that often seed coming from the northern hemisphere takes a year longer to germinate than from the southern hemisphere.  While they may sort of get the right conditions if we try to give it to them, they still don't have the right gradations of temps etc.... or that is my theory.  I've given up worrying if things from the north that "should" have germinated this year don't, because they often do the next year.  If the Ornithogalum you bought is O. dubium, then I've never managed to germinate that from south african seed in the 3 times I have tried.  No idea why, but not a single germination.

Don't expect a great deal from the Massonia in the first year (and jasminiflora is a smaller species anyway).... I find that they put up a quite small leaf the first year, but come through quite strongly the next year.  For me at least.

Anthony,

Love the poppies.  Beautiful!!

[cohan]

Cohan,

I can't comment on the succulents, but the Ornithogalum and Bulbine may take longer to germinate anyway.  I find that often seed coming from the northern hemisphere takes a year longer to germinate than from the southern hemisphere.  While they may sort of get the right conditions if we try to give it to them, they still don't have the right gradations of temps etc.... or that is my theory.  I've given up worrying if things from the north that "should" have germinated this year don't, because they often do the next year.  If the Ornithogalum you bought is O. dubium, then I've never managed to germinate that from south african seed in the 3 times I have tried.  No idea why, but not a single germination.

Don't expect a great deal from the Massonia in the first year (and jasminiflora is a smaller species anyway).... I find that they put up a quite small leaf the first year, but come through quite strongly the next year.  For me at least.

Anthony,

Love the poppies.  Beautiful!!

thanks, paul--well, i havent pitched any of the seed pots, they are still in their plastic bags, but some have dried out; i will water them all thoroughly again in fall, though i think many/most of these are supposed to need fresh seed, so i dont have much hope..the ornithos (a couple) were not dubium..
i wont be worried about small leaves for now, i just want them to stay alive to HAVE  second year..lol

anthony--love that Myosotis!

[Rogan]

"i got a batch of seed from SA last fall, and had dismal results"

Judging by the seeds you had ordered Cohan, I would think I have bought seed from the same nursery on several occasions and also had generally dismal results. I have also had raging email battles with them on occasion with absolutely no resolution - if it's the same nursery we're talking about...

Generally, most SA seed germinates fairly easily if it's fresh, and therein lies the problem - many nurseries insist on keeping their seeds far too long / store them incorrectly and then sell them at exhorbitant prices. I suppose that's also a sign of the times we live in - high costs and dodgy suppliers! However, to be fair to the nursery, the plants raised from the seeds that I have managed to germinate are excellent and impossible to obtain from any other source.