International Rock Gardener – New SRGC Site Feature

[fixpix]

Ok. Will start reading some of them
Thank you both!

[astragalus]

Just finished reading the October, 2014 issue of the IRG, and it was  a feast.  You really
keep outdoing yourselves.  Wonderful articles, and now I'm impatient for the latest daphne, Daphne "Czech Song" to come into general cultivation.  It looks like a winner.  Thanks to all who work so hard to bring out this publication each month.  In the winter months, the last Friday of the month is looked forward to as much as the starting date for the latest Downton Abbey in the U.S.

[johnstephen29]

Just downloaded the full set of IRG, I've got some reading to do to catch up.

[Maggi Young]

Just downloaded the full set of IRG, I've got some reading to do to catch up.

You'll enjoy it , I'm sure!  Be  easier to achieve than reading all the 12 years of the Bulb Log - you'd need  a lot of time for that!

[Tim Ingram]

I am going to have to do as John and Susann have done and download (and print) the IRG - it makes such good reading! I particularly enjoyed Ian's more detailed description of using broken concrete blocks in troughs; they are amazingly effective (I wonder what Farrer would have thought of the idea - I could imagine some critical rhetoric if he hadn't seen the result?). We have just removed (only partly because the trunks are still there at the moment) an old leyland hedge, about 36 feet long, in a very narrow north-facing strip between us and the neighbour's house. I was thinking of making 'hypertufa' rocks to create a planting for choice alpines here, but Ian's pictures suggest another way to go. This would be an excellent place for alpines needing cooler conditions - the light is still reasonably good. The only problem, which will take a while to deal with, is removing the old tree stumps and roots!

Many thanks again for the stimulus the IRG provides.

[fermi de Sousa]

Hi Tim,
As you are building a raised "rock" bed over the stumps couldn't you just cut them off level with the ground? By the time the roots rot out any subsidence of the bed would be minimal ... Or you might be considering rebuilding the bed anyway!
Building with broken concrete wouldn't work here because of the dryness....after a year it would still look like a wrecker's yard! We would only be able to do it where there is constant watering maybe in conjunction with a pond.....and overhead shade
cheers
fermi

[Tim Ingram]

Hi Fermi - yes I have been deliberating about whether to cut the stumps at ground level, which would overcome a lot of work. Maybe Ian's method works so well because of the much cooler and wetter Aberdeen climate. If I copied his ideas I would make the bed at ground level, plunged in sand, as I have done with a few blocks of tufa elsewhere. This is on the shady side of the very high (frustratingly so) wall of the neighbour's house so would be probably one of the coolest spots in the garden, which is what makes me think it would work. The ideal of course would be to find a source of large tufa rocks, and if this opportunity arose I would have no hesitation in making a horizontal version of Harry Jan's constructions. The big problem is that the wall belongs to our neighbour's, who are not gardeners and view what we do with puzzlement, so we can't build the wall higher, though we could build up against it with a suitable barrier. (My dream remains something like Roy Elliott's tufa cliff, which goes back even earlier to the Cliff House made by Dwight Ripley - these allowed them to grow all sorts of really choice dry-land plants, which are my real interest).

I think we are unlikely to do much for a while anyway

[Richard Green]

A while ago I started printing the IRGs double-sided in color on standard 80gsm paper.  However, the first year (12 issues) make a booklet 1.3cm deep (excluding any binding), and this gets expensive and bulky.  After next month's issue we shall have 5 years or 60 issues - and that is 6.5cm or 2.5 inches of shelf space used up.

Can I make an alternative suggestion?  Buy an iPad (or Kindle) and download the IRGs as pdf files and view them via iBooks.  I do this, and I also have a laptop/tablet running Windows, and reading them in Acrobat is a breeze.  Of course, please also download Glassford's excellent Cumulative Index in pdf and you are ready to read anywhere.  The only time I print is to take particular articles out in the field with me - and I am even starting to switch to use my iPad in the car now!

[Tim Ingram]

That does sound an excellent idea (I only have to decide if I need a Macro lens for my camera more an ipad - I'll put them both on my Christmas list and let someone else decide ). My big problem is that I love books and turning the pages so I've yet to get properly used to reading on an ipad or Kindle, but this is obviously the way to go. (Mind you it would be great if a publisher would consider printing books on 'Alpine Gardening' with writing of the sort of quality I have from the past).

[astragalus]

Or if this same publisher could print the "I.R.G."  in book form, with 3 or 4 years' issues and an index, in a size that would permit the full enjoyment of the pictures.....  I admit it - I'm still a book person although I do admit the value of a kindle or whatever when traveling.

[Maggi Young]

IRG 61 is a Crocus Special:  http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2015Jan291422555042IRG61.pdf   
Crocus adamii is discussed and 3 new species are described

N.B. new link : http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2015Feb011422783332IRG61.pdf
 
 Dr. Jānis Rukšāns, describes various new Crocus species -
Crocus gunae, Crocus reinhardii  Crocus iranicus
 

Main page for all issues of International Rock Gardener e-magazine   http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/index.php?log=international
Up to date Index to IRG always available here http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=9567.0

[Yann]

An issue for croconuts

[Maggi Young]

It is indeed, Yann!

Please note there is a new link for IRG 61  : http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2015Feb011422783332IRG61.pdf

[Maggi Young]

Do you  remember the article by Robbie Blackhall-Miles in the IRG  of October 2014 ?
http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2014Oct301414703577IRG58.pdf  Oct 2014   

Here is an update from Robbie   of the shed roof now - in the snow.
"The shed roof looking as it should! Harrimanella, Huperzia & Diapensia."

[Maggi Young]

We have a new contributor this month - Robbie Blackhall-Miles, who  is propagator at Crug Farm Plants in North Wales and blogs for ‘Guardian Gardening’ where he encourages people to try growing something new and different. On his website www.fossilplants.co.uk he writes about the plants growing in his ‘backyard botanic garden’ ; a collection of early evolutionary plants and horticultural oddities. He is becoming renowned for succeeding with difficult to grow plant species and is particularly interested in Proteaceae, Ericaceae, Cycads and Ferns. He is a fellow of ‘The Linnean Society Of London’ – the world’s premier society for the study of natural history, and is Chairman of the Australasian Plant Society in Great Britain.

IRG 58 has  an  article from Robbie Blackhall-Miles on the living roof  of his shed. He has included some rather surprising plants there. Who would expect to see Ranunculus lyallii ,  so well adapted to life in its native New Zealand  to be able to survive on  the roof of a wooden shed in Wales? 

Update pix to @Robbie Blackhall-miles' IRG article  in IRG 58
(http://www.srgc.org.uk/…/logdir/2014Oct301414703577IRG58.pdf )
here is Robbie's shed roof today