What do you see on your garden walks? 2012

[cohan]

Great stuff!

Trond, the seashore plants are nice, but the Anemone woods are especially lovely As Tim mentions, it always fascinates me to see such solid growth of anything, pretty much unheard of here.. the pinkish ones are especially nice...

Anne- love the Hymenoxys, and the view of the Rhodo with the lovely stone house behind is really nice

Lori, I don't think I've seen the white waterlily either, though I was happy to see the native water arum once (Calla? too lazy to look it up right now...lol)

[externmed]

Extremely dry and warm spring.  Now 3 to 4 inches of rain and possibly a low of 30F next Monday.
Charles, NE Massachusetts USA Z 6a +/-

[cohan]

Great Pediocactus! My favourite genus of hardy cacti
Love the yellow tulip too
Just heard about that storm going through the east- hope you get some good moisture with no damage..
Its turned opposite here- into the low to mid 20'sC the last couple of days and tomorrow (31C forecast for Medicine Hat in southern Alberta) but then temps will drop back to more normal low teens C..
We now have that interesting spring phenomenon- we still have sizeable snow banks on parts of the property, summer temperatures, and mosquitoes!

[Todd Boland]

Trond, your meadows of Anemone are wonderful!  Mine are about 5 cm high at the moment.  Our Cochlearia will not flower until June.

Charles, to grow cacti outside is the stuff of dreams in my area.

We just had another spell of wonderful sunny, warm weather but now it is just 2 C and suppose to stay under 10 C the rest of the week...plus rian, drizzle and fog!  The alpines will be on hold for a while.

[externmed]

Cohan, Todd thanks for your comments.  Have about 7 species of barrel cacti, every winter I hold my breath, but so far they have come through.  Way back when, I angled a sash over a trough for the winter against a south wall; but I've gotten lazy and they're on their own.  They're in at least 20 inches of sand mix above grade and against a free standing brick wall.  I kept finding different sources of sand so it's a bit of an archiological site.  I'm moving toward 90% sand with some limestone gravel (and some dirt), but I haven't gotten there yet.
Many of my cacti came from Beaver Creek in BC.  Penstemons and Astragalus/ Oxytropis seem to have settled in too, at least the ones that lived long enough for me to plant them.  Lewisia rediviva has 2 buds.  I planted one under a stone and one in the open, the stones get infested with ants, so the one in the open is better.
Charles MA USA 6a
 

[RickR]

An update on the Leibnitzia anandria from here:
http://nargs.org/smf/index.php?topic=934.msg16283#msg16283
and the follow up message two down on that page.

~~~~Pollination did occur.   When the petals withered, all that was left was the green calyx(or bracts).  Today I noticed these protruding purple appendages.  I am not sure what exactly they are, but they weren't there before!  Only one flower was not pollinated (I asssume).  It's the dried up stem at the lower right in the first photo.

        

[Lori S.]

I looked for the leaves of Erythronium dens-canis several times on the weekend and saw nothing... today, I come home and not only are the leaves up but this one's in bloom!     (Sheesh, am I that unobservant?!?)

[cohan]

They look cool at that stage, Rick! I like the plant, makes me think of mini Petasites...


Lori- just missed it, or were they that fast in the warm weather? Seems too fast, though...lol

[Hoy]

I am still only dreaming of growing cacti in the open garden! Or to be more precise, I have planted 2-3 different taxa (just one pad of each) outside at my summerhouse now - but they still have to face a winter there before I can relax a little.

[Spiegel]

Our much needed rain blasted the flowers on Paeonia tenuifolia before I got around to photgraphing it but Paeonia mlokosewitschii made it through OK.  This has the added attraction of fire-red seed heads in the fall.  You can see them from quite a distance.

[Tim Ingram]

Charles - really interesting that you grow those cacti in such deep sand and are also trying astragalus and oxytropis. So far I haven't done too well with these but would love to grow more of them successfully. I think Anne also mentioned that her sand beds were very deep. Probably I haven't made them on a big enough scale. The Veronica (bombycina?) is a super plant.

[externmed]

but Paeonia mlokosewitschii made it through OK.  This has the added attraction of fire-red seed heads in the fall. 

Wonderful specimen in great form. Hopefully it exceeds it's reputation of flowering for a week and looking at it's best for 4 hours.
....but then, how many other cherished plants might deserve that reputation?

Charles MA USA

[Spiegel]

I think quite a few plants deserve that reputation but not this one.  It blooms two weeks or longer with new buds opening all the time.  The big deal is that the foliage survives a heavy rain, unlike Paeonia tenuifolia, which really is fleeting unless the weather is perfectly to its liking.

[Todd Boland]

Stunning peony Anne!

You are almost caught up to me Lori....my E. dens-canis is almost past.

Erythronium sibericum is my favourite species...I grew this from seed.  Only one germinated and it is not spreading yet.  I hope it does!

[Spiegel]

Todd, that's a beauty.  Hope it spreads soon.