Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life

[annew]

Very satisfying to see in your third pic that the bulbs do actually grow upside down down under!!

[Michael J Campbell]

Anne, you have an eye like a travelling rat. 

[ashley]

Is that a Shannon seanfhocail (saying) Michael?

[Lesley Cox]

Fermi there are various patches of this little bulb around the garden though except in this one particular place, round an ancient and very large tree trunk, all seem to be in contained patches, i.e. not actually spreading about.

You're right Anne, they ARE just about growing up-side-down, so thickly that they're pushing each other up and out. There are various other things in patches too. I though for a lovely moment they could be chionodoxas but now don't think so. Maybe some kind of scilla or hyacinth. Not a single crocus anywhere but a billion daffodils, nothing low though, nor any iris nor cyclamen. Doubt if there will be erythroniums either.

I mentioned Cornus 'Greenvale' before. I'm told now that it is C. kousa x capitata, and that my prunus is probably P. autumnalis.

[Lesley Cox]

I can't believe it is 6 months since I last did a Blog entry! I was sure there had been a few in the last half of 2013. Apparently not! I hope to do better now with more but perhaps shorter entries.

Blog 661 – 6th January 2014

I have resolved to do better with my Blog this year and try for an entry each week. That was the original intention but it quickly became a much more occasional thing and gradually the continuity was lost. Laziness? Other things getting in the way? Some illness? All of those but I hope I can put aside the first, prioritise with the second and overcome the third.

My little nursery is beginning to take shape and Roger is building setting out beds for me, three of which are now filled with plants for sale – a fourth has my own plants, all of which are to find homes in the garden – from ready now to newly potted seedlings and rooted cuttings, most of which will be ready by the autumn but some, especially quite a good selection of irises, not for a full year and even more if I’m to stick with my principle of seeing everything in flower before I offer it for sale. From my own is fine as I know the plants but plants from other sources are notorious for bad naming at worst or sometimes just the inevitable variation within a species or hybrid swarm. I and all of us have been stung with wrongly named plants from nurseries and I don’t wish to inflict this on others.

Several more beds are yet to be built for plants which take more sun and they are now becoming urgent as this wet but warm summer is producing jungle-like growth in everything from new seedlings to established plants in the garden and inevitably, the weed population which flourishes mightily.

Other resolutions for the New Year include a determination to look at every new Galanthus thread on the Forum. For the last couple I have deleted New Topics about snowdrops as they appeared, based on the fact we don’t have/can’t get any of the myriad forms which appear so frequently. But as I’ve cleaned up bulb pots this early summer, I find I have about 20 different ‘drops so maybe there will be some hybridising and variation as they are planted out and begin to establish into good clumps. I had a little seed on a few including the large-flowered Galanthus elwesii ‘Emerald Hughes’ and a kindly Forumist sent seed to me of yellow forms (i.e. yellow markings and ovaries). All of these were sown as fresh as possible but still they seem to take at least 6 months to germinate here.

I was thrilled to have a single pod of nine seeds on Iris winogradowii and have sown these around the single bulb I now have of the mother plant. Over a few hot dry summers this species along with its hybrids ‘Katharine Hodgkin’ and ‘Sheila Ann Germaney’ had disappeared from its raised bed habitat in my previous garden so I was happy to get a new one of the damp-loving winogradowii from my favourite (other) nursery Hokonui Alpines and of the last, complete with rice grain bulblets, from another iris addict. She had remembered from many months ago that I had lost mine. Both are planted in a bed with primulas, hepaticas, small irises such as II. gracilipes and cristata and some small rhododendrons et al.

Yet again this morning I have missed the open flower on Geleazine azurea. I saw it just a little open at 7am and when I went back with camera at 11ish, it had opened and was already collapsing. It was the fourth bloom. One came and went then two at once and now this one, probably the last. However, overnight two branches have appeared on the tall flower stem so there will be more. I may have to bed out with it and take breakfast as well. Alternatively I could bring the pot onto the back porch and keep a closer eye on it. The colour of this iris-relative is the most gorgeous, intense blue, not quite Tecophilaea-like just slightly purplish but pure and clean. There are pretty markings inside too but I’ve not yet seen those properly.

One resolution broken already. I intended to keep text to a page or less but here I go, well into a second. So no more until next week. Some new pictures perhaps tomorrow or when the rain clears. Yet again it is pouring heavily down on us and is cold as well.

[Brian Ellis]

Other resolutions for the New Year include a determination to look at every new Galanthus thread on the Forum.

Now Lesley, is this wise?  You know what we are like and it may be catching

[annew]

Yet again it is pouring heavily down on us and is cold as well.

Sounds more like Yorkshire in January!

[zvone]

Beautiful Lesley!

Thank's!

Best Regards!   zvone

[Lesley Cox]

Thank you Zvone, I hope you enjoy these notes. Of course they are very much MY experiences and often that's quite boring to those who aren't involved but sometimes something useful may be learnt.

Already I'm behind with the Blog. I'll try later today but I have set most of the day aside to watch a one day cricket match between India and New Zealand. We're on a little high at present having beaten the West Indies comprehensively in a Test series, a One Day International series and a short series of Twenty/20 matches, as well as beating India, the world Champs, in the first of 5 ODIs. I shan't try to explain the different forms of the game to those who are not cricket fans, so long as no-one tries to explain American football to me.

[zvone]

Thank you Lesley!
 
Thanks for blog. Many beautiful and useful things are written down. Thank you. Your blog is The best for the lover Gardens.
 
Still forward successfully!

Best Regards!  zvone

[zvone]

Hi Lesley!

Where are You?

Best Regards!  zvone

[Lesley Cox]

Thanks for your note and interest Zvone. I can't believe where the time is going and all my Blog intentions have collapsed in recent weeks (months) as other things crowd in. I'll do what I can as soon as I can and in the meantime, I apologise abjectly.

[Tim Ingram]

Lesley - the little plant of Hypericum kelleri that you so kindly sent me is just beginning to grow away on our new 'Mediterranean bed' and I will show some pictures as plants on this come into flower. Kind regards from Kent too.

[Lesley Cox]

I'm so pleased about that Tim. Mine is looking a bit shabby at present but we've had so much rain lately, another 30mm overnight and the whole place is awash today. Surprisingly, Asperula suberosa and Veronica bombycina in the same trough, are looking amazingly well with new growth.

My gorgeous Magnolia 'Ian's Red' was hit by a southerly gale in the summer time and had the top 2 metres snapped off. It's been trimmed to tidy it and though looking a bit stubby at present, will recover I think after a couple of years. There are some buds for this coming spring anyway. The ground underneath is covered with different forms of Cyclamen coum, the first almost out, and Iris ret. 'Harmony' among them, is well up already so should flower mid winter.