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

[tonyg]

Bulb repotting finally commenced here this week.  Delayed later than ever by holidays and the AGS conference.  No harm to the crocus in a late start and in the balmy South (well compared to Scotland anyway) the bulbs will do fine, especially now that some cool refreshing rain has watered them in.  Not too many weeds had invaded the covered frame this summer!  After clearing off the old growth, the pots when tipped out showed a good yield of healthy corms, very few losses.  I think the move to using a single pot size, a square long tom, has been good for the plants.  Where I don't have enough of an item to fill one pf these pots I put 2, 3 or 4 different taxa in each pot.  I am careful not to mix taxa with very similar corms.  Better still, in some pots I have iris or narcissus seedlings in with crocus.

When I tipped one pot out I found it had another resident under the corms.  This newt played dead for a few minutes before moving on to investigate Ruths hand.

[tonyg]

Two frames of repotted bulbs.  Cool, refreshing rain has penetrated the compost now so let rooting commence!

In the greenhouse the bed I planted up last year with various bulbs has been given its autumn storm.  First up are Scilla lingulata and Colchicum montanum.

In the crocus pots two forms of Crocus speciosus are first up including this one from Art (received as biflorus.)

[tonyg]

Cyclamen graecum has grown and flowered well here for many years inside an old greenhouse, planted in a raised bed.  The greenhouse was removed in January so the cyclamen have been exposed to the glorious summer weather    Much to my surprise they are flowering quite well.  As I have mentioned earlier, I wonder if the short burst of extreme heat at the end of July was enough to trigger flowering.  Clearly they do not mind plenty water in summer!  There are half a dozen other plants flowering in the bed so it's not just a freak clone.

Two clumps of sternbergia are also now putting up flowers rather against the odds.  I'll try and get a decent shot of them soon.

[Tim Ingram]

Tony - we have also had unusually good flowering of Cyclamen graecum on a raised bed outside, but still nothing like what you can get under cover. The best flowering I remember was in plants grown in long tom pots in a greenhouse, on a standing area that was designed to be flooded intermittantly. This also worked well for plants like Eryngium bourgatii and others that can be a problem with overhead watering. I think you are probably right about the hot spell later in the summer. I know when it is too hot and dry they will often go completely dormant for a year and this must happen in the wild.

[tonyg]

Here is a shot from 2010 when the glasshouse was still covering the frame.  These kind of results year on year, the bed goes down to the natural so there is always some moisture at depth.  Still have to decide whether to cover this end of the bed next summer.

[tonyg]

Peak flowering for the autumn crocus here right now.  Late because I repotted and watered late.  I have posted a few other pics in the Crocus November thread.

Still new things appear in the garden.  Two clumps of sternbergia flowered while we were away for half term and a tiny colchicum, possible C. pusillum has reappeared in the slate bed out front.

[tonyg]

This time last year I showed some tiny Sorbus hupehensis seedlings aflame with autumn colour.  Here is one a year on.

[angie]

What a lovely display, they look really nice with the sun on them 

Angie   

[tonyg]

Nothing to report in the dark winter months.  Progress has been negligible although several trays of seed pots planted late in the old year and more recently hold promise of some new plants for the garden later in the year.

Much snow in the January freeze, as the pictures below show.  We had it deep, we had it crisp and even.  The final shot was taken as I walked home from the city centre on the day of the greatest snowfall.  Behind me was the gridlocked traffic which made walking a better option than taking the bus!

Since the thaw some of the plants have rushed to flower.  I have shown a few crocus in the Crocus January thread, although the main flush of flowers is yet to come.  Also looking good now are reticulate iris.  Shown here is Iris hyrcana, an exchange with a kind forumist.  The winter hoop-petticoat narcissus are very late this year.  Narcissus romieuxii is looking bonny just now.

The forecast suggests a cold month ahead which is fine by me.  I'll be happy to wait for the main flush of flowers until March's longer days and stronger light.

[tonyg]

Still very cold here, just a few milder days with some sunshine before the arctic blast returned.

A few pics from this week, bulbs raise from seed that I am especially pleased with.

Narcissus cantabricus ssp cantabricus

Gymnospermium albertii

Lots of crocus to admire when (and its not been often) the sun does come out.  Just showing one here, a new baby from seed sown in 2009 of Crocus sieberi ssp sieberi.  It's probably got some genes from subspecies sublimis in it, a beauty whatever!

[tonyg]

Still cold, a bit brighter.  Spring creeps in.

Iris unguicularis is flowering better than ever.  These are seed raised, my own seed collected from the cultivar 'Mary Barnard'.

The spring crocus frame.  I popped home at lunchtime, expecting a grand display after some morning sunshine but it's still so cold that the flowers were already closing up 

Galanthus fosteri.  I am trying some spares of this in a sunny raised bed.  It's a good doer in pots in the frame but prone to split into smaller bulbs.  Coming from warmer, drier habitats than most snowdrops it may need that warm, dry rest.  We'll see.

[tonyg]

Time for a fresh start! 

In the two and a half years since I last posted here a lot has happened.  Most of it has not involved tidying the garden 

Family health problems have limited my gardening time ... and my forum time ... however I am entering a new era and have decided to make a fresh start.  So a new Blog will follow soon, shall I call it 'Making the Best of It' ?

[Maggi Young]

Why not, Tony?    Sounds much  more positive than my recent idea for a title - "Wading through the mire" 

[TheOnionMan]

I'm still wading through my onion mire, in it's 3rd year of salvage operations. Tony, I'd like to hear about how you're making the best of it.

Photo showing a small portion of my allium garden (approx 60' x 60', or 20m x 20m), that had become swallowed up in aggressive field grasses and various other horrible weeds during a time of particular work craziness (illness included), where I gave up and "lost the garden".  I am still in process of spading through every inch of the garden in a major make-over, my goal is to finish it next year, this photo from mid August 2015.

[tonyg]

Why not, Tony?    Sounds much  more positive than my recent idea for a title - "Wading through the mire" 

Or should I carry on with this thread - maybe it could be re-named?
I was asked to give a talk based on the blog - the final title was 'Alpines for the Time Challenged' which would be another alternative re-name.