June 2012, first half
Little wink for the scottish readers to begin, Primula scotica
A charming tiny plant which I find demanding a minimum of care and attention if it is not to be lost. I had already struggled to keep it going, but it seems I have eventually found good conditions for it here: simply in a plastic pot in the propagation area. Shadowed when the sun shines too bright, and from time to time watered, when rain won't fall.
It seeds itself around in the pot now, a good thing.
As I am presently writing at the end of the first June week, we have thunderstorms passed by. The worst was predicated, big hail, damaging winds, and heavy rain, but we were lucky once again, and the garden came
unharmed.
Otherwise lot of garden-useful rain during the last days, exactly since the opening to the public, which of course has a great impact on frequentation, as the weather can become really awful when the general winds turn to west, even in summer: it is getting simply very fresh, if not cold for people coming from the lowland, the clouds are so low that we are within, enjoying the sight of fog being swept away by the winds, which are also carrying more or less penetrating rain during the worst moments...
Well, alpine garden conditions, that plants generally should appreciate though!
There are naturally also short periods of sunshine or dry weather at least, and it is precisely during those periods that the garden is best appreciated: plants have had their watering, and on the first sunray, everything looks so pure and colourful.
Those moments are useful for us for another reason, as we can continue the work outside
The garden is relatively old, built in the late sixties. Not old in the sense of its own age, which makes it a quite young one, but more in the sense of the different beds that compose it, as some of them have never been
renewed since then.
As you might imagine in such a case, always comes a time when plantations just become a big mess.
Profiting from the moments of dry weather we started to attack the old Massif Central plantation beds.
Massif Central is an old volcanic mountainous region of southern/centre France, reaching generaly altitudes between 1200 and 1600 m.asl with a pic at almost 1900m, and making somehow the link between Alps/Jura to the ENE, and Pyrénées to the SW, taking from both some flora-elements, and having also some endemic plants, but generaly beeing far less reach than Alps or Pyrénées.
It also occupates an intermediate climatic position between the moister and cooler atlantic influences of northern France, and the drier and warmer southern France, which allows the presence of both relictual arctic species at higher altitudes and already almost mediteranean species in the south part.
Our Massif Central bed is probably at least 30 years old. Plants have been introduced in it at hte beginning, and then almost never again ( obviously botanical gardens neither organises seed collects there,
and nor has any botanical garden a specialised collection of plants from Massif Central).
So after more than 30 years, the strongest plants have become dominant, and the weakest or smallest ones have disappeared little by little.
The old beds were simply much too big for so few interesting plants, and we decided to sacrifice one of them to the neighbouring Pyrénées, planting out the Massif Central plants that were still worth it to be transfered in the from now on single renewed little Massif Central bed.
On the pics above is the bigger one, which is going now to the Pyrénées.
Lot of work, as said, a real mess here, everything has to be planted out or simply thrown away when too much, too coarse. Soil must be renewed also, stones must be placed later. And the first plantations will probably only follow next year then ( with Lilium pyrenaicum/Gentiana burseri on the top of the list, Aster pyrenaeus, Adonis pyrenaica, Petrocallis pyrenaica, Fritillaria pyrenaica, Ramonda myconi, Saxifraga longifolia, aso. Would like to acclimate also Gentiana pyrenaica, a big challenge however...).
We just hope we will find enough further/new pyrenean plants to complete the collection and this new bed to come, as here again, it isn't always easy to get seeds from there, the only alpine garden in the Pyrénées having very sadely closed in one of those last years.
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Bad news, but also good ones sometimes: several alpine gardens in Europe are beginning a long-term program of phenological observations in relation with climatic changes.
The plants studied are mountain or alpine plants.
The aim is to dispatch in each garden absolutely the same plants with the same genetic material, simply by cuttings, in order to get comparable observations everywhere in those participating gardens.
Main points of the vegetative growth are monitored during the season ( blossom, new leaves, fruiting process, aso)
The 12 different plants will be grouped in the same area, with a weather station in the vicinity.
This is a good mean to raise awareness of the climatic changes problem, as the plantations are made in the public area.
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The sowing frame in the propagation area.
Most of the sowings is now made, but there are a few secundary species-seeds waiting in the fridge.
It is always frustrating having to wait May to begin with seed sowing, missing out the whole winter, and sometimes loosing a year untill germination ( and also seed viability for some species, though approximatively stored cooled and dry meanwhile).
I hope things can be done differently one day and seeds get sown as soon as received for those arriving in winter, but for the moment, let's say it is just not possible.
As said above, germination delay must sometimes be expected, and probably reduced germination rates in the end too. It means the pots must be kept perhaps one year more than they would have been if sown
immediately during the first winter, and I never throw away a pot with no germination under 2 years, whatever species, whatever genera, whatever family, just to be sure not to throw something too soon.
This is even more true of course for many liliaceous species, which are known for beeing sometimes long to germinate in normal conditions.
I would say the sowings of liliaceous species are kept at least 3 years here if no germination was observed during that time.
The "risk" of all that is to have within the same pot a first batch of few seedlings germinating right in the summer after spring-sowing, and then seeing more coming the next spring, making development and pricking out of the youngest sometimes a bit difficult if the 1 year old seedlings get stronger too rapidly.
Again, pricking out immediately the few ones germinated in the first season means destroying the chances for the seeds still in dormancy in the pot, waiting probably the next year to come.
This is just a hard choice when confrontated to a delicate or rare species, when a further thing has to be taken in consideration: indeed the risk of letting the first season seedlings linger in the sowing pot outside and unprotected the next winter, whereas they would sometimes already need better adapted medium/conditions.
I dream of sowing everything in winter, allowing a good period of cold to prepare the dormancy break to come, and getting then nearly full or sufficient germination in the spring, pricking out all at once, and giving all better conditions from the start on...
Every gardener adapts to his conditions and possibilities though, and on the whole I can't say the results are really disappointing. There are always some frustrations of course, but I guess every one of us has surely his own frustations too.
Plants newly pricked out ( in part), and having their 6/7 days stage in the relatively "safeness" of the house proximity on a bank: I don't dare to put them directly in the propagation bed, even if they can be protected from bad weather there.
Though contended, it is just the many slugs and mouses marauding that I don't trust, and slugs are happier than ever lastly with almost round the clock wetness or at least moisture on the soil.
The propagation area is some 50 meters away from the house, surrounded by a semi-natural environment full of dangers ( grass surface, forest).
It may be only a "psychological appeasement" for me to have the plantlets safe here, even if only for 7 days, but well, after that time, they must somehow go away and live their first harder life in the open propagation area, and make place to new ones in the relative shelter of this elevated bank...
As said just before, we are having this year more slugs than average, and it is probably even worse for the mouses. These last ones cause the most damages and have greatly appreciated Primula denticulata and P.rosea unripe seedheads.
It is just surprising how they can get to the seeds upthere, on sometimes 40 to 50 cms high elongating stems in case of the denticulata, but they make it, beginning to climb over the lower part of the stem, making it cant to the soil through own weight when arrived around the middle, and then probably walking on it when laid on the soil to finally get to the beloved seedhead!
This wouldn't be a problem as long as their taste leads them to such plants. It is even quite a help, as I wanted anyway to cut the seedheads of the denticulata, to avoid too generous self sowing later. But most obviously, the mouses won't stop here, and will probably hassel other more interesting plants later when they will be fisnished with eating denticulata...Unfortunately, I have to say that some of them won't have the opportunity to go on, as we really have to do something against them now; we can slowly begin to speak of an invasion, with underground holes everywhere you look.
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I didn't have many opportunities to make pics in the garden , as the evenings were often rainy, foggy and sometimes very soon dusk. Yes, we would be approaching the longest days of year...
The few presented below are from 2 or 3 occasions on the last 15 days, which makes the choice quite reduced.
Papaver alboroseum
A tiny papaver from both extreme east of Siberia and pacific coast of NW America.
A lovely colour shade, with this soft salmon pink turning to white to end in a yellowish green near the flower stem. It must not be expected to flower very long. As with many of its relatives, the single flower very often only lasts one day, and within 4/5 days, only forming seedpods remain on the plants, and it turns again to a rather unsignificant inhabitant of the bed. Seed has to be harvested: it doesn't seem to be really long living.
Gentiana verna ssp.balcanica
A beautiful and comparatively easily grown subspecies of G.verna. ( which should be identified, as there seem to be some incertitudes as to its name, G.verna ssp.angulosa, syn G.pontica, beeing quite similar in
appearance, and beeing also an easier one).
Self seedlings around the mother plant in the pot, making hope of generous flowers in 3/4 years perhaps.
Crepis aurea
A simple favourite.
Only an orange flowered Taraxacum, but what a colour! Easy living, tolerating almost all conditions ( dry or soaked soils, rich or poor, full sun or light shadow). Self sowing, no special care, an excellent plant which makes quite a beautiful effect in the Alps bed in the first part of June.
Androsace vandelli trough
Special treatment for this trough planted with androsace vandelli seedlings.
A regular trough simply put vertically on the side, not on the bottom, with drainage holes therefore on what would have been the small side of a trough used "normaly" horizontally.
Slate sheets inserted on a approximatively 45° angle to help holding the medium ( a lean and free draining mixture) and not beeing washed by the rain too quickly, and the seedlings planted here and there. They are small, and some of them flourish for the first time ( beeing 3 years old now).
Why such an installation you might say? I have also Androsace vandelli in a deep pot plunged in sand in the propagation area, and it does well there, but I always fear the winter moisture remains too long on it.
With this vertical trough, excess water is simply drained away more quickly.
Another reason, less important, is that A.vandelli is also partly a cliff plant, it means it gets almost no snow cover during winter, beeing exposed, and therefore adapted, to sometimes very cold but generaly fairly dry
atmosphere. Under a deep snowcover for several months is not the usual way it overwinters in its natural environment. I wanted to mimic this by putting my trough verticaly, although it will never ever be high enough to look out of the snow in winter.
