April 2012 in the Northern Hemisphere

[olegKon]

Emerging helleborus

[Hans A.]

The mother was not bad - but the offspring is still better!
Canarina canariensis

[Lesley Cox]

Your Iris 'Blue Ice' should feel right at home Oleg.

Lovely variation Hans. Is this usual in seedlings of the Canarina?

[Paul T]

Hans,

I have Canarina canariensis in flower (just opened) here in the southern hemisphere as well.    Are the 3 colours separate plants?  Mine is somewhere between the 2 paler ones, solid pale orange with darker veins, a bit darker than the single pic which I'm assuming is the parent.  Still not quite like any of yours.  I love all of yours, but the darker ones I think would be very striking.  I'm just happy to grow mine here successfully, as it really shouldn't do that well here.  I like to push the envelope when it comes to what should and shouldn't grow here.  

[olegKon]

Your Iris 'Blue Ice' should feel right at home Oleg.
Thanks, Lesley. I'm grateful to Susan Band for such a beauty.

[Zdenek]

I enclose a picture of my Iris winogradowii 'Alba' flowering just recently. Some people suggest that it is a white form of Iris reticulata.
I am not able to recognize its morphologic features, nevertheless I am quite sure that it is winogradowii. Its behaviour is the same. It flowers in the exactly same time and need not to have dry summer, it even hates dry conditions in summer. It is easy to grow in an open garden.

[Zdenek]

Several other pictures from this month.
Fritillaria alburyana
Callianthemum kernerianum
Androsace wulfeniana
Corydalis popovii
Fritillaria alburyana

[ruweiss]

What beautiful plants - grown to perfection by the expert!
Thank you for showing.

[Maggi Young]

What beautiful plants - grown to perfection by the expert!
Thank you for showing.

Rudi, you have said what I and others were thinking of Zdenek's lovely plants.

[Lesley Cox]

Beautiful plants Zdenek, especially the iris and...and...

If the iris were reticulata it would surely have more leaf showing at bloom time. In that respect is is like winogradowii, not reticulata, and such a snowy white too, really lovely.

[cohan]

Oleg, its always interesting/amazing to me to see the plants coming through snow-- they can only do that here if it is new snow, the soil needs some time (sometimes a lot of time!!) to thaw and warm up after the snow melts before anything can grow!
Still almost nothing happening here...lol

[olegKon]

Cohan, The snow you see is December snow, so it is not fresh. But I can name a few factors anabling plants to come through it: The snow covered the ground before it was frozen; plants were mulched with leaf mould in autumn; plants radiate some energy enough for the snow and ice to melt around; at the moment I was taking the pics the air temperature was around + 18 which changed the snow structure; heavy rain the day before didn't remove the snow (too much of it this year), but contributed to the change of snow structure and probably to ice melting.
Do you have first flowers there in Canada?

[Paul T]

Beautiful, Zdenek.  So many beauties there, and that Frit aurea is amazing!!  I love the white Iris too.  Thanks for showing us.

[ian mcenery]

Several other pictures from this month.
Fritillaria alburyana
Callianthemum kernerianum
Androsace wulfeniana
Corydalis popovii
Fritillaria alburyana

Zdenek I would be very interested to know the secret for growing F alburyana as it is very slow with me. It is particularly interesting plant as Sidney Albury was a local Birmingham AGS group member way back in the good old days - too young of course to remember

Here is a good doer for me in he garden

Tulipa stapfii

[razvan chisu]

A few plants from my own garden:

Lathyrus sylvaticus
Muscari latifolium
Puschkinia libanotica
A viola seedling
Coryalis wild form