Making the Best of It... (Was 'Blog from an Untidy Garden')

[tonyg]

Fellow forumist David Millward (Dr Rock) braved the ash clouds and flew down from Edinburgh to give an excellent lecture last week.  We took in a couple of local gardens and a nature reserve while he was here.  Cecilia Coller is perhaps best known for her exploits at AGS shows but her rock garden provided the best photo opportunities.

The phlox cv (name not coming back to me - sorry) was quite stunning, perfectly sited among big rocks.  I grow Erinacea anthyllis, a spiny broom relative from the Pyrenees, in my garden butit is nothing like the metre wide specimen shown here.

Back home Tropaeolum tricolorum scrambles happily through shrubs.  The tubers are safe from frost in the sandy soil beneath the shrubs, close to a south facing wall.

[angie]

Tony I like Erinacea anthyllis, I have never seen this before.
Angie

[Lesley Cox]

I might be able to send some seed in the summer Angie (ours). It's prickly as a gorse bush though.

[angie]

Thank you Lesley , my other seeds are doing well. I think I am getting better with seeds now.

Angie

[tonyg]

I don't know how the erinacea will do in Aberdeen.  I think it needs plenty sunshine to ripen the woody growth and promote good flowering.  What are your experiences Lesley?  Forgive my ignorance but how does your climate compare with Aberdeen in the northern UK?

.... I would also be happy to raise some new plants from seed.  Mine never sets any and is not in the best site but is too big to move ...and too prickly

[angie]

I don't know how the erinacea will do in Aberdeen.  I think it needs plenty sunshine to ripen the woody growth and promote good flowering.  What are your experiences Lesley?  Forgive my ignorance but how does your climate compare with Aberdeen in the northern UK?


Tony do you think we dont get any sunshine in Aberdeen I wish we did have more sunny days here.
Angie

[Lesley Cox]

Forgive my ignorance but how does your climate compare with Aberdeen in the northern UK?

Favourably Tony. Very favourably.

Having said that, winter has arrived with a bang, a whole week now of first thick mist and drizzle; four, going into the fifth of solid, heavy rain, and snow in the air too, though not on the ground. It's early for this and many of the deciduous trees still have leaves, some of the beeches, willows, birches etc and especially the larches so that the colours are superb, being very wet, whole golden carpets on the ground on Three Mile Hill when I came out of town this morning.

But back to the subject in hand. I have two large plants of the Erinacea and both flower very well and set some seed. Long nosed tweezers are necessary to collect it because of the prickles. Both plants are in pretty much full sun, in large troughs (one limestone and the other hypertufa) so the wood would get well ripened I should think. The only water they ever get is from the sky (like now) and sometimes that means no water for a couple of months but the roots will be way down deep by now.

If I can collect some seed next late spring, I'll send it off to you both (Angie and Tony). It is not difficult from cuttings either (except the handling).

By the way, a little packet of Corydalis seed arrived this morning, having survived MAF's ministrations. Thanks so much Tony.

[Maggi Young]

Forgive my ignorance but how does your climate compare with Aberdeen in the northern UK?

Favourably Tony. Very favourably.

Hurrumph!

Though I must admit the Anthyllis didn't flower in our garden and the BD ditched it when he was last looking for more bulb planting ground. 

If it is any consolation to you, Lesley, it is cold enough for snow here..... some sunny skies but chilly and raining.... horrible, in fact!

[tonyg]

Forgive my ignorance but how does your climate compare with Aberdeen in the northern UK?

Favourably Tony. Very favourably.

Hurrumph!
Though I must admit the Anthyllis didn't flower in our garden and the BD ditched it when he was last looking for more bulb planting ground.  
If it is any consolation to you, Lesley, it is cold enough for snow here..... some sunny skies but chilly and raining.... horrible, in fact!

Ah but would you want to live in a place where the rhodies get stressed out by the dry heat ... like I do here
Off to Wales for a week - camping and hoping for it to be dry!!

[Maggi Young]

Well, no, my rhodos are VERY important to me!

Enjoy your holiday.... I'd pack plenty woolies and thick socks if I were you! 
(It's at times like this I am grateful not to be anyone going camping, to be truthful!!)

[angie]

Though I must admit the Anthyllis didn't flower in our garden and the BD ditched it when he was last looking for more bulb planting ground. 

Maggi could BD not have ditched it my way 

Tony enjoy your week in Wales... will look forward to see some nice pictures of sunny Wales.

Angie

[Lesley Cox]

Our snow hasn't come to much I'm pleased to say, just a dusting on the local hills though there's quite a lot up-country. The rain has been a real problem for some people, over 8 inches here in 4 days but as we're on a hill it has been all good, for me, the first really decent rain, by which I mean penetrating to more than 2 or 3 inches, in probably 4 years. Major floods though on the Taieri Plain below us and many roads blocked with flooding or slips. A dozen of my Market vendors couldn't get there yesterday. The public came though, real heroes as it teamed solidly for every minutes of the day.

[tonyg]

Heatwave here .... turning the world upside-down following on from Lesley's post!

Very busy time at home as we continue the renovations started last year.  The garden is luxuriously wild at this time of year.  The 'old' side of the front garden has some nice Dianthus carthusianorum seeding around.  This form came as var valesiacum, a 'dwarf' form.  It is shorter than the other form I grow but not as tight as those I saw around Zermatt.  The natural planting here even includes wild grasses ... a meadow if you use your imagination

The pale pink is Aethionema grandiflorum which also seeds around .... a bit too much if not deadheaded.  The seasonal growth can be cut back quite hard, giving the plant a 'bun' appearance around the woody central stem.  If you don't cut it back there will be seedlings to fill every gap in the garden.

In a patch around the back that I cleared earlier this year Tropaeolum ciliatum (I showed you the sweet potato-like tubers earlier) is reappearing from fragments left behind.  I am removing them!  It is a rampageous thug, witness the speed of growth up this polygonatum

[tonyg]

A few gems from the 'tame' parts of the garden.

Campanula cochlearifolia, white and blue.  Grown from seed and spreading nicely.  It has done so before but does not always make it through the winter ... too wet?
Androsace lanuginosa tumbling down the side of the new trough.
Geranium cinereum from Pyrenean seed but not as dwarf as those I saw many years ago on an exposed ridge in the Pyrenees.
Calochortus flower so much later than the other bulbs ... surrounded by dry and brown remains.

[David Nicholson]

Do you get away with Calochortus in the open garden Tony?