April 2012 in the Northern Hemisphere

[ichristie]

Good morning all, well the worst has arrived we have at least 4 inches of snow and still more falling, I am expecting many plans will be finished now. Pictures taken this morning, cheers Ian the Christie kind

[Philip MacDougall]

Ian, I can't believe that snow. Next reindeer will be chewing on your Trilliums. Here's what was snug in the greenhouse today. Most are seedlings of Podophyllum vietchii, a few are crosses with Podophyllum plieanthum, the ones down the middle came up as root props off Podophyllum Spotty Dotty.

[ichristie]

Hello Phillip, great podophyllums hope Santa will not arrive with the raindeer, the Trilliums are under cover but have no idea if they will stand the big temperature drop, cheers Ian.

[fleurbleue]

Waouh Philip  I'm green of envy 

[Brian Ellis]

Wonderful selection of pods Philip, I particularly like the snowflake shaped red one above the two green, but they are all super.

[Paul T]

Ian,

Oh bother (nicer way of putting what I really said), that is a lot of snow on a spring display.  Ouch!

Philip,

I am amazed at the leaf variation.  I had no idea there were so many.  I grow 3 or 4 Podophyllums (that's all I've managed to find so far), so your pic is very inspiring.  I might have to try to track down more seed now, having seen all of yours.  I was given seed of Podophyllum pleianthemum a couple of years ago and it has done brilliantly, so seed works well here for me as well.  All green though so far, as is of course expected from that species. 

Thanks heaps for the pics.  Hopefully you can show us some of the results further down the line, and whether you get interesting flower variations etc from the hybrids.  Exciting!!

[johnw]

Philip - Are you crossing your best veitchiis together or just collecting seed from them all?  Spectacular range of colours there.

Is Spotty Dotty fertile?

Have you had failures with Kaleidoscope?  Can't keep it going here at all and difforme is another tricky customer.

You must apologize for keeping Maggi up all night as she had a late nigth (early morning) preview of your pix.

johnw

[WimB]

Some plants in flower here now:

Bellevalia pycnantha
Iris bucharica
Iris x graeberiana 'Yellow Fall'
Trillium albidum
Anemone nemerosa 'Dee Day'
Epimedium grandiflorum 'Dark Beauty'
Fritillaria imperialis
Fritillaria meleagris
Ranunculus ficaria 'Salad Bowl'
and Thalictrum thalictroides 'Pink flash'

[fleurbleue]

Funny ranunculus Wim  Do you grow your Iris x graeberiana all year in your garden and how please ?

[WimB]

Funny ranunculus Wim  Do you grow your Iris x graeberiana all year in your garden and how please ?

Nicole, it grows outside all year round, in pure sand (+/- 40 cm deep) and I put it under cover from half June until half September...so it gets a good dry baking in summer!

[ichristie]

Hiall, thanks for super pictures they have cheered me up, snow beginning to melt, cheers Ian the Christie kind

[Brian Ellis]

Lovely to see the red Fritillaria imperialis, could someone explain to me why I can grow the yellow one with no trouble, but not the red? 

[fleurbleue]

Thank you Wim 

[KentGardener]

Philip.      WOW!   

That is just my kind of image. 

[Webster008]

Wonderful selction Wim.

Particularly like Epimedium Dark Beauty and Thalictrum Pink Flash.

The folliage on the Epi is amazing.