February 2011 - Northern Hemisphere

[Paul T]

Ed,

The Olsynium douglasii are gorgeous.  What a great colour.  Not a genus I think I've ever seen here in Aus.  Very pretty little thing by the look of it.  Thanks for showing us your trough..... I love the combination.

[Ed Alverson]

Olsynium douglasii was previously known as Sisyrinchium douglasii until taxonomists decided it was more closely related to South American Olsynium than North American Sisyrinchium.  The species is of course named for David Douglas, the Scottish botanical explorer who traveled extensively in the Pacific Northwest in the 1820's and 1830's.  I wouldn't be surprised if he was the first person to introduce it to cultivation, certainly he must have seen it in bloom at one time or another when he traveled through the Columbia River gorge.

There are a number of nice photos of this species in nature on Mark Turner's web site at http://www.pnwflowers.com/flower/olsynium-douglasii and http://www.pnwflowers.com/flower/olsynium-douglasii/gallery.

Ed

[johngennard]

I would like bluebells,their foliage persists for too long and would prevent my herbicide spraying for too long and allow the cow parsley to re-establish.

John, have you tried applying a broadleaf selective herbicide (like Triclopyr - "Garlon" in the US) to the cow parsley? It wouldn't affect bluebells, even if they are actively growing, because they are moncots.

Ed

Thanks for that Ed.I haven't come accross that in the UK but I will do some research.However,I think it might be too late for me to be establishing bluebells.I am still actively dividing the snowdrops as well as spreading seed of the aconites and snowdrops but starting from scratch with bluebells might be a tall order.

[Lesley Cox]

Paul the Olsynium is well established in NZ rock gardens, and there is a beautiful white as well, equal in my mind to any snowdrop. I think the pale one on Mark Turner's website is palest pink rather than pure white. Here's mine. It seeds a little too but the seedlings haven't yet reached flowering size so I don't know if they'll be true to colour.

[Michael J Campbell]

Spring is here 

The garden.
Hepatica in the garden.
Hellebores in the garden

[Michael J Campbell]

Ornithogalum balansae.

[Maggi Young]

Spring is here 

The garden.
Hepatica in the garden.
Hellebores in the garden

Well if Spring isn't there in your garden it's doing a jolly good impression! All lovely but the hepaticas are just hard to resisit.

[Hoy]

Michael, I am jealous
Spring is definitely not here, we got 10 cm of snow last night However the weather forecast says +7C tomorrow and Saturday so maybe we get a glimpse of coming spring

[johngennard]

8 hours of sun today so a few more pictures of the wood in better light-at the risk of giving you indigestion.

[cohan]

Great to see all the flowers--not yet here!
I have to settle for overwintering seedpods or dried leaves 
for more, see:
http://nargs.org/smf/index.php?topic=587.0
We were talking about Salix seed viability, and I wonder how that affects the fall seeding species here!
or full album:
https://picasaweb.google.com/cactuscactus/February232011WinterWillowsAndFriends#

[Maggi Young]

8 hours of sun today so a few more pictures of the wood in better light-at the risk of giving you indigestion.

Lovely to see the woods looking even brighter with the sun.

In the new issue of IRG, #14  for February, Ian has written a tiny article about Eranthis and John was kined enough to allow the use of one of the photos of his wood from 17th February to illustrate a naturalised planting.

http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2011Feb241298591020IRG14_Feb_2011.pdf

[Joseph]

Michael, a beautiful garden. And John, what a stunning sight. Before I clicked on the thumbnails I was reminded of these fields of Adonis I saw at a botanical garden in Korea (not my garden but I hope it's OK to post here):

[Paul T]

John,

Breathtaking!!    Congratulations on creating something so beautiful on such a scale.

Cohan,

Great winter shots.  Definitely a little different to the usual snow pics everyone seems to be producing now. 

Michael,

Great Heps.... so cool to be able to grow them in the garden.  I think they'd just get lost here.

[Brian Ellis]

8 hours of sun today so a few more pictures of the wood in better light-at the risk of giving you indigestion.

No chance Really lovely to see these John, well done.  Oh for a bit of woodland.....

[Gail]

Wonderful pictures everyone.  Joseph - thank you for posting the Adonis, I've never seen them en masse like that.