Flowering Now - August 2009

[Brian Ellis]

If I hadn't been attending to snowdrops I would have missed this Roscoea purpurea forma rubra 'Red Gurkha', the stem is as wide as my finger!  Not exactly a delicate flower, but the colour!  The last picture is one of the borders where there are many snowdrops in the Spring, at this time of year the height is somewhat different!

[Brian Ellis]

Mmmm colour doesn't look good, this may be better

...and it is, Photoshop not behaving in the first pics!

[Hristo]

Brian,
A stunner and no doubt!
Every time I see Roscoe I weep a little, just can't grow em here!
Thanks for showing.

[Sinchets]

Some more plants from our Rila mountain trip:
Cicerbita alpina- quite a stunning colour in real life
Digitalis grandiflora- along the roadside in the valley of the Beli Iskar river
Digitalis viridiflora- sorry not in focus but this is the true plant. I have never had this the times I have tried to buy it- just a D.lutea imposter. The brown/orange markings vary tremendously between plants.

[Sinchets]

Sorry, Robin, I missed your last post. If you have a pic of the Centaurea leaves I can try to help. 

[cohan]

If I hadn't been attending to snowdrops I would have missed this Roscoea purpurea forma rubra 'Red Gurkha', the stem is as wide as my finger!  Not exactly a delicate flower, but the colour!  The last picture is one of the borders where there are many snowdrops in the Spring, at this time of year the height is somewhat different!

thats some height, alright! that tetrapanax is impressive!

[Lesley Cox]

A stunning roscoea Brian. would you send me your email address please. At present I can only contact you though the "send this Member a Personal Message" and I can't forward the south African one that way.

Thanks

[Brian Ellis]

Will do Lesley

Every time I see Roscoe I weep a little, just can't grow em here!

Sorry Chris, but how sad not to be able to grow them

[Brian Ellis]

Cohan I don't know what it is about the Tetrapanax but I really love it, unfortunately I got the smaller of the two that are widely grown   At least it gives shade to the 'drops.

[Lori S.]

How hardy are Roscoea spp.?  I bought one Roscoeae purpurea a few years ago (they do get the odd interesting thing in at the big garden center near us... though at $30 each, I limited the experiment to one plant); very floriferous but it always wilted whenever it got warmish outside (possibly rootbound in the pot?) and succumbed during the winter.  Given its wimpy behavior during the summer, I'm not sure if it was really a fair test of hardiness.  I'd like to try it again, but, as luck would have it, I have not come across it since.   

1) First Allium flavum in bloom, in the rain.
2) Stachys monnieri 'Hummelo', with russet stems of Dracocephalum nutans behind.
3) Verbascum blattaria, in white and in yellow.
4) A cheerful native, Ratibida columnifera.
5) A little Lychnis flos-jovis, looking primula-like, amongst the fierce competition from campanula and delphiniums.
6, 7, 8 ) One of my favourite prairie natives, Dalea purpurea.  It is a hugely more substantial plant in captivity than it seems to be in the wild around here.   Perfectly well-behaved and a bottoms-up bloomer.

[cohan]

i like the Dalea, i've never seen it in person, only pics, and i dont think i ever realised it was so zowie!

[Rodger Whitlock]

How hardy are Roscoea spp.?

In my own garden, between the long summer drought and the long winter downpour, a great many eastern Asian plants are absolutely hopeless in the open garden. The situation is aggravated by the poor drainage of my lot, a former marsh the Boy Scouts could canoe in. While in their native haunts, the Asiatics have warm wet summers, and cold dry winters, chez me the precipitation regimen is reversed. If they don't desiccate during the summer, they rot away to nothingness in the winter.

I have never had a tricyrtis last more than one season, and I have killed any number of roscoeas large and small, even the small weedy species one is warned against. Bitter experience has taught me to resist the siren call of these beauties, though I manage to grow a few in pots that can be protected against winter wet.

IOW, the issue may not be frost-hardiness per se but rather a more general dislike of climatic, cultural, and soil conditions.

[johnw]

Brian - Have you seen Tetrapanax 'Steroidal Giant' selected at Cistus?  It's a whopper.  next time Philip comes this way I'll ask him to bring a piece of root for you.

Lori - A friend grows a few Roscoea here, one is purpurea, I recall R. alpina was not hardy for her despite the deceptive name and can't remember the others.  They are loving this summer mists.

johnw

[Sinchets]

More from the Rila mountains:
Jovibarba heuffelii (?) on Maliovitsa and Musala- is the id correct?

[Ragged Robin]

Lori, your white Verbascum blattaria is really pretty opening out to show those wine coloured stamens...is it a tall one?