October 2010 in the Northern Hemisphere

[TheOnionMan]

For me, 'he' was looking  like a Mandrill..... but one in a good mood!
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com

You're right Maggi, it does look more like a mandrill, complete with blue face.

[Knud]

Lovely to see the Empetrum in fruit Knud. I have plants of both that one and E. rubrum but neither has set fruit. Maybe not cold enought here?

Lesley, I did'nt know there was an E. rubrum, Chilean I gather. The other one you are growing, is it E. nigrum or E. n. ssp. hermaphroditum? The first is dioecious and I guess would need male and female plants to fruit? The latter will, as name indicate, manage on its own. Here E. n. ssp. hermaphroditum is called mountain crowberry, because it grows there. The plain crowberry grows in the lowland here. I have never seen one in a garden, but both fruit very freely where they grow; the mountain crowberry typically carrying more and larger berries.

[Knud]

thank goodness for the gulf stream zone 8 is tropical to me

Cohan, let me tell you, there is nothing tropical about the Stavanger climate, cool and moist (OK, wet) year round. Average temperature 1C/34F in January, 15C/59F in July. Alpines seem to like it, people not. I loose far fewer alpines to the wet winters here than I did when gardening east of Oslo in zone 4/5 dry, cold winters with reasonable snow cover, but with many hard freeze-thaw cycles autumn and spring.

Interesting with the range of treelines you described in Alberta. I remember when visiting Banff and Jasper National Parks being surprised at the big trees growing high up the mountanside.  Our low treeline here on the windy west coast (like in Scotland) is an exposure treeline. Moving inland the treeline moves up, and at Valdresflya in Jotunheimen (second picture I posted) the treeline at 1100-1200 m elevation is an alpine treeline.

[Lesley Cox]

Knud, I have to assume mine is the dioecious form, not the subspecies since there have never been fruit. It came a few years ago from a seedlist, just as Empetrum nigrum.

I'm suspicious of Lori's plant of Nepeta phylloclamys. I have had this for many years and it makes a small, woody subshrub with felted rather than furry leaves and yes, the flowers are small and insignificant but are in great numbers. What distinguishes them and the whole plant in fact, is that it smells of lavender, one of the coarser species, like L. stoechas. It came to me originally from a Mathew and Tomlinson collection as Origanum species, then after another change to something, ended up as Nepeta phylloclamys. Although a quiet plant, it is one of my favourites, just about 5 or 6cms high and nice at the edge of a trough.

[TheOnionMan]

I'm suspicious of Lori's plant of Nepeta phylloclamys. I have had this for many years and it makes a small, woody subshrub with felted rather than furry leaves and yes, the flowers are small and insignificant but are in great numbers. What distinguishes them and the whole plant in fact, is that it smells of lavender, one of the coarser species, like L. stoechas. It came to me originally from a Mathew and Tomlinson collection as Origanum species, then after another change to something, ended up as Nepeta phylloclamys. Although a quiet plant, it is one of my favourites, just about 5 or 6cms high and nice at the edge of a trough.

Nepeta phyllochlamys I grew from the Turkish MacPhail & Watson expedition back in the latter 1970s, and it proved hardy outside for a number of years, making a most satisfactory fuzzy tumbling mound, great for a rock wall situation.  While the flowers are small, they were so numerous to create a haze of color, so was actually effective in flower. 

Not sure if Lori's plant is just a young one, possibly stretched, and/or photographed at rather close range.  This plant has been around for decades now, and lots of nurseries carry it, so it shouldn't be too hard to find some photos on the web with which to compare.  Here's a link that shows a plant thus labeled.  It looks like what I remember my plants to be, but frankly, my photos of these are 30+ years old, all heaped into a couple large boxes of photos, so digging them out to confirm my plants grown from Mac&W back in the 1970s would be a real trick!
http://www.wildgingerfarm.com/Nepeta.htm

[Lesley Cox]

You're right Mark, it was McPhail and Watson not Mathew and Tomlinson, and the one in the container in your link looks just like mine, when fresh and young. My main plant is woody and hard now but I have young ones coming on. I'd hate to lose it. Fortunately, local cats don't bother it, preferring instead Aktinidia kolomikta which they have now totally destroyed. I think I first had the Nepeta in 1978 or 9 so probably from the same source as yours.

[Lori S.]

I'm suspicious of Lori's plant of Nepeta phylloclamys. I have had this for many years and it makes a small, woody subshrub with felted rather than furry leaves and yes, the flowers are small and insignificant but are in great numbers.

Not sure if Lori's plant is just a young one, possibly stretched, and/or photographed at rather close range. http://www.wildgingerfarm.com/Nepeta.htm

Yes, all of the above... as I look at my records, I see it was actually only planted in 2009... I think I got it from a friend in a seedling trade(?)  This is the first time I have seen/noticed it in bloom (which probably makes sense being from seed in 2009).  The leaves smell like what I would describe as mentholated lavender.  It is "stretched" too, as it's growing in regular soil, and was also photographed at close range (the flowering stems are looser than the others)... another plant I'll need to move to better conditions when they become available. 

I did compare my plant to the Wild Ginger Farm link above prior to posting... I thought it seemed the same in leaf shape and flower characteristics... ? 
Not a lot of photos out there, but there is also this one:
http://www.kadel.cz/flora/Images/WebSize/Img1049.jpg

[cohan]

mark--although we had a damp chilly september, oct was nicer, we were quite warm until quite recently we were even over 20C this month a couple of times, and our coolest days had been 10-12C until the last few days, we should hit something like 12C again later in the week.... but still count ourselves 'lucky' last year we had  a full week of cold and snow with lows hitting -20C in the first week of october!
in damp and shady spots, i expect some of the soil in my yard to stay frozen now....

knud--i assumed those low treelines must be due to wind etc--quite surprising to me, as the high treelines in the rockies are what i am familiar with...lol..of course this area is fairly high to start with--we are near 1000m, and not even that close to the foothills yet...

as to your wet climate--i think the hardest thing for me would be long periods without sunny weather, if it rained every day but was sunny after i wouldn't mind 
 i'm still just beginning to garden here, really, so time will tell what things will do well in my climate (nearest is lori who does very nicely with many things, but there are significant differences from calgary to here..)..i wonder though--just over the 3 years since i have moved back i have seen what seems to be nearly 100% difference in precip from one year to the next (one year 50 year high rainfall record, with a lot of hot days, next year almost no rain for half the summer, and few warm days...)

[Lesley Cox]

My apologies Lori, it seems my suspicions were unfounded and your plant IS right. All I've grown have tended to be almost white in the foliage and very compact, mainly I suppose because they've been hot, dry and half starved but they do make very nice plants like that. Did you notice that the seeds are exactly like lavender seeds?

[Ragged Robin]

Great to see these all these late flowerings 

[Lori S.]

Good heavens, no need to apologize, Leslie!!
We will be adding on to the tufa garden in spring (where the soil, I assure you, will be very lean!) and if I can move it out there afterwards, perhaps it will take on the character of yours, which is certainly what it should have (assuming it's correctly IDd).  I haven't been looking for seeds, but blooming so late, it may not have been able to form any anyway...

[Philippe]

Hi

A view of the chinese GENTIANA sinoornata. This year promptly surprised by the first snowfall around mid-october.
But that doesn't matter: after having spend 8/10 days under an initially 20cms deep snow cover, it now proudly reappears...and will probably soon go under the next snowfall.

A last look at the little ALLIUM thunbergii from east Asia. Not the most beautiful amongst the genus, but very interessant for its late flowering

[Lori S.]

Hi, Phillippe.  It's comforting to see someplace else that has had snow a few times already!  Unfortunately, there have been enough fairly hard frosts (-6 deg C has been the coldest) that new blooms are increasingly unlikely.  
I was just noticing the climate info posted for your area.  We get ~40 cm of yearly precipitation on average, and it is quite a dry climate here, overall.  Your area must be very dry indeed with only 20-25 cm of yearly precipitation!

[Philippe]

Your area must be very dry indeed with only 20-25 cm of yearly precipitation!

Thanks it's not the case 
We have about 2meters precipitation in the year.

[Gail]

Beautiful picture of the gentian Philippe!