June 2011 in the Southern Hemisphere

[Lesley Cox]

Thanks everyone. I've draped a piece along an oak dresser which is covered with bits of pottery, a fruit bowl, photos and other family tat (and a ceramic polar bear from Finland) in hope all the buds may develop. If they do I'll take a picture.

[Paul T]

Lesley,

Mine is in full flower here as well.  I just love it, as do all the honeyeaters.  I get plants coming up in the garden all the time, as they freely set seed.  I tend to cut mine back heavily after flowering, to control it's growth a bit.  There is a hint of perfume to it at times, reminiscent of Daphne, but VERY elusive.  I tend to only smell it when I'm not trying to (if you know what I mean)

Regarding Gladiolus dalenii..... apparently depending on where it was sourced from originally in South Africa depends on when it flowers.  I have dalenii or daleni hybrids that flower from spring to autumn, depending which variety.  The late on like Fermi's always tend to get hit with frost when it is at peak flowering, then goes into dormancy.  But I have a nearly identically fowered one that flowers just before Christmas as well, and a red form that flowers more towards the height of summer.

BTW.... apologies if I miss-spell things or miss spaces..... still getting used to new computer (a laptop this time, and oh-so-different) and it's keyboard. So if anything reads wrong, sorry.

[Lesley Cox]

Welcome back Paul. I hope all is well with you and Yvonne.

We're under a red cloud here. Well actually the sky looks perfectly clear but when it clouds over, at any time of day, everything is tinged red. It seems to be keeping frosts at bay. We've only had a couple of very light ones so far.

[Paul T]

Lesley,

So the ash is apparent in the sky when cloudy then?  I was wondering whether it could be seen by the naked eye?

We haven't had many recent frosts here, after two -7^oC about a month or so ago.  Some very confused things.  I was repotting Lilium 'Triumphator' yesterday and found them all showing signs of reshooting (or two inch growths in somecases).  Not good, in that I haveno ideawhat they'regoing to do when they hit the surface and get frosted. 

Yes, Yvonne and myself are OK.

[Lesley Cox]

I certainly haven't seen anything that looks like the actual ash. There should be some around today as Air NZ cancelled flights to and from Invercargill, Dunedin, Chch this morning, the first they've cancelled, but I see/hear they're in the sky again this afternoon. I remember when Mt pinatubo (?) blew up some years ago for weeks we had a layer of ash on everything; the trees, roofs, cars etc. Nothing like that now.

[arillady]

When the Adelaide airport was closed yesterday due to ash the sky looked perfectly fine apart from a few clouds which didn't look ash like.
The airport is open again today.
I have been checking this site for the last few days :
http://www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz/today
The Canterbury Plains looks awfully like a volcano top in the photo on the site.

[Paul T]

Pat,

Interesting site.  It's just been so aweful what ChCh has had to go through.  It just never seems to end.  They say that this week's quakes will spawn aftershocks for the next 6 months again, and that this lot were on a different fault line, which is even more worrying.  I can't even begin to imagine what people there must be going through.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Superb Clematis Lesley !!! 

.... and welcome back Paul !   The Southern Hemisphere just isn't the same without you... 

[Paul T]

Luc,

Thanks.  Now I just have to work out how to edit my photos so I can post them again.  I'm going to have to get back onto my old computer and find out the package I was so used to using.....  You think I can remember what it was to download it.   Just a pain to have to connect the old computer up again. I wish I could remember what it was.  Otherwise I will have go and try to find something else, unless there is something on the laptop, or in Office 2010.     Sigh!

[Paul T]

Woo, hoo.... I remembered once I had a quick troll around the Net.  Irfanview.  Hopefuly I can get some pics uploaded tonight or tomorrow.

[meanie]

When the Adelaide airport was closed yesterday due to ash the sky looked perfectly fine apart from a few clouds which didn't look ash like.
The airport is open again today.
I have been checking this site for the last few days :
http://www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz/today
The Canterbury Plains looks awfully like a volcano top in the photo on the site.

The activity since Monday is pretty shocking......

On a brighter note, that is a stunning Clematis Lesley.

[Maggi Young]

Have a look here http://www.srgc.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=7471.0 to see Southern Hemisphere plants enjoying life in Eastern Scotland......

[Lesley Cox]

Our pre-winter has been very mild with warmer than average temps for April and May but we're getting (not heavy) frosts now followed by days that would normally be brilliantly sunny, if cold, but are somewhat overcast because of the Chilean ash cloud. That is perhaps why the frosts are not heavy too. Whether it is the warmer than usual temps I don't know but already I have several spring crocuses out, CC cvijicii x veluchensis, baytopiorum, biflorus alexandri and many more in bud. C. biflorus mazziaricus has been out for a month as has laevigatus (probably v. fonteneyi) and the gold backed form was finished three weeks ago as was the white minimus.

Yesterday I found the first Iris 'Katharine Hodgkin,' fully out but bitten clean off by something but many more buds evident, perhaps a month early and most of the retics are well into bud, as well as two I. danfordiae, the only time I've had flowers on a 2nd year patch. They were buried quite deep in the first place though.

Many small hoop petticoats especially rom. 'Atlas Gold,' seedlings from 'Julia Jane' and the Australian 'Mitimoto' are well out, and also Galanthus 'Lady Beatrix Stanley' and 'Lavinia' (if correctly named).

The only form I have of Iris unguicularis usually flowers from August, very late but has started already this year. (Anthony, the one I sent to you was from a different source and is flowering now in her garden.) My only Camellia sasanqua form, a white, continues well. I must try for more of these they're so wonderful in mid winter. My one regret is that I don't have a wintersweet. I had a good one in my last garden but somehow the opportunity to replace it hasn't arisen. We have so few proper tree nurseries now and we have to rely on garden centres who usually stock what one doesn't want or won't grow here in the south anyway - except for natives of course by which we are inundated.

[Lesley Cox]

The buds of Clematis napaulensis which I draped over the dresser have come out but perhaps not quite so well developed as I would have liked. Now the stamens are beginning to fall.

[fermi de Sousa]

First flower yesterday on Iris planifolia


The last on a Colchicum grown from seed as C. pusillum which it isn't - probably a form of C. corsicum


And Crocus cancellatus ssp mazzariacus has come into a second flush of flowers!




cheers
fermi