Northern hemisphere June 2010

[Lesley Cox]

The little Arthropodium can indeed be cute, and airy and endearing but it can also be weedy, seeding freely into paths and round about. Actually it would really love the gravel flats of Graham's garden.

[Graham Catlow]

Thanks for the compliment Angie.
And likewise to you David. My garden is smaller than it looks in the photo. Some of the boundaries are hidden so some of what you see is beyond the garden.

A super rock garden indeed, with the plants happily nestled against the rocks. I thought there was sand laid on some of the paths but it seems to be a Raoulia?

Thanks Lesley.
It is Raoulia australis. My mountain stream - well thats how I like to see it - perhaps stetching the imagination a little. It took a bit of a beating this winter but is recovering.
Graham

[Lesley Cox]

I'll PM you Graham. I have 2 plants of the Asteranthera and have kept them undercover for their life with me (from cuttings, 2005 or 6 I think) so I'll put one outside in the spring. I have several logs which would be suitable as well as, perhaps, what we call pongas or pungas, which are the cut stems of tree ferms and they too rot away quite quickly. I know they are useful for Philesia magellanica.

[cohan]

For David and Luc and everyone else.

My rock garden is ‘work in progress’. I looked at it a couple of years ago and thought it looked like a patchwork quilt of miscellaneous plants dotted amongst the rocks. So I began to reduce the number of varieties and bulk up the ones I wanted to increase.

Graham

nice work, graham! i guess you are dealing with the distinction between garden as collection of plants, and garden as an aesthetic expression! both perfectly valid, and i suppose most of us aim for a bit of both, but must all find our own balance, once we acknowledge the difference

[Luc Gilgemyn]

For David and Luc and everyone else.

My rock garden is ‘work in progress’. I looked at it a couple of years ago and thought it looked like a patchwork quilt of miscellaneous plants dotted amongst the rocks. So I began to reduce the number of varieties and bulk up the ones I wanted to increase.

Quite a different approach from what most of us tend to do Graham - but it does look super !!
I recognise your giant Raoulia from the AGS photo competition 2009... it caught my eye then and it does now !!    Brilliant.
Thanks very much for taking the time to show us all this ! 

[Zdenek]

Thank you Zdenek for your notes. Perhaps you could confirm for me then, that I should be calling the plant below, Saponaria pumila? I had thought that pumila was used by people who didn't realize that the correct name was pumilio! Seems I was quite wrong about this.

(Attachment Link)

This means that what I have distributed as S. pumilio was actually S. pumila and those expecting to get pulvinaris, will have received pumila instead. Oh dear.

Hello Lesley, your plant is really Saponaria pumila. You are correct.

[JPB]

Conophytum bolusiae ssp. bolusiae, field collected clone (LAV 27907), Augrabies, S-Africa. One of the earliest flowering Conophytums. Some vegetatatively propagated plants have been in culture for fifty years or more. The type specimen of C. ricardianum is still available in culture (the "clonotype")
Petrorhagia prolifera, from seed wild collected at Erdeven, Brittany, France. Small but beautiful. now extinct in Holland. Once occurring in open, dry and sandy areas along our great rivers 
Two better pictures of Thymus longiflorus. Easy and floriferous in an frost free pot.

[Giles]

It didn't rain today....

[Graham Catlow]

For David and Luc and everyone else.

My rock garden is ‘work in progress’. I looked at it a couple of years ago and thought it looked like a patchwork quilt of miscellaneous plants dotted amongst the rocks. So I began to reduce the number of varieties and bulk up the ones I wanted to increase.

Quite a different approach from what most of us tend to do Graham - but it does look super !!
I recognise your giant Raoulia from the AGS photo competition 2009... it caught my eye then and it does now !!    Brilliant.
Thanks very much for taking the time to show us all this ! 

Many thanks Luc
Yes you are correct the Raoulia was in the AGS on line show. Beaten quite rightly by your very impressive Arenaria granatensis tetraquetra.
I remember seeing it again in this thread a few weeks ago.
Graham

[christian pfalz]

hello hans, Petrorhagia prolifera is here by me in sothwestern germany wild on dry places...
cheers
chris

[Lesley Cox]

Dear Luc and Luit,

Would you please note (see above) that what you received from me as Saponaria pumilio, is actually S. pumila. S. pumilio (further above) is an old (invalid?) name for S. pulvinaris, which I don't have now.

[Lesley Cox]

Thymus longiflorus looks exciting.

[JPB]

hello hans, Petrorhagia prolifera is here by me in sothwestern germany wild on dry places...
cheers
chris

I'm not surprised it does. It even may be common going southward, like in France and where you're living. In Holland it reached its northernmost boundary. As I said, the species rich grasslands where it grew are now threatened here.

cheers, Hans

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Dear Luc and Luit,

Would you please note (see above) that what you received from me as Saponaria pumilio, is actually S. pumila. S. pumilio (further above) is an old (invalid?) name for S. pulvinaris, which I don't have now.

Duly noted Lesley ! 

Many thanks Luc
Yes you are correct the Raoulia was in the AGS on line show. Beaten quite rightly by your very impressive Arenaria granatensis tetraquetra.
I remember seeing it again in this thread a few weeks ago.
Graham

Your memory is as good as your rock garden Graham ! 

[Lvandelft]

Dear Luc and Luit,

Would you please note (see above) that what you received from me as Saponaria pumilio, is actually S. pumila. S. pumilio (further above) is an old (invalid?) name for S. pulvinaris, which I don't have now.

Lesley I did not know that S. pumilio is now S. pumila and I think that after naming it S. pumilio sooooo many years I will have problems to call it S. pumila whenI see it.