What do you see on your garden walks? 2012

[Howey]

And here he is - I hope.  Fran
Frances Howey
London, Ontario, Canada
Zone 5b

[RickR]

Not sure if I'd like that in my "garden" , but it's pretty impressive.

--- Excellent branch work, too!

[Krish]

I had two Cyclamen purpuracens which i bought from a nursery for the last 4years. they grew into  large plants. in fact one year there was no snow cover but they still survived. year before last both the corns started to show above the ground.One of that rotted .I  think it is because of the drainage issue.the other one is fine. I got seeds from the NARGS seed exchange and from green ice nursery 2 years ago and now i have about 6 more plants .

[Hoy]

And here he is - I hope.  Fran
Frances Howey
London, Ontario, Canada
Zone 5b

Oh, do you think he is out walking in the night? Not sure if he is still there

[Tim Ingram]

That is an incredible snowman Frances - how an earth did they get the midrif and head on top of the base? One very cold year here we used icicles hanging from the greenhouse for arms - quite effective!

This is the most remarkable specimen of Garrya elliptica that I've ever seen, growing in the mild south-west at Dunster, near Minehead in Somerset (this is also close to Porlock where several famous gardeners including E. B. Anderson had or have gardens). John Richards relates how Wayne Roderick was surprised how hardy this Californian shrub is in British gardens, and Robert Nold in his book 'High and Dry' speaks of several other species, especially flavescens. I've never heard of these grown in the UK, I wonder if they are much in the US?

[Hoy]

Tim, that is a nice specimen! I've seen Garrya in England and have wanted to try it at home. Once I got the chance but then we got the worst winter in decades and it died

[Howey]

Tim - don't know about Garrya elliptica being grown in the US.  However, back in 2000AD, inland from Los Angeles and high up where there were still patches of snow on the ground, we discovered one growing in the wild - I have always been intrigued by this plant/tree with the stunning catkins and really should have taken some seeds from it.  Fran

Frances Howey
London, Ontario, Canada
Zone 5b

[cohan]

Mark, some nice leaf forms on the C purpurascens!
I have some from garden seed from John W in Nova Scotia, some from regular and some from 'white' leaf plants, still small though I had some flowers last year; I also have a lot of seedlings from wild Austrian seed from Johannes Hoeller (hope I got that right without looking it up) some of those have been in the ground for a winter and a half and there was some flowering this year.. I planted out some more this year in various spots so we'll see how they go.

Fran-I think that's probably the same snowman we saw on tv- they used a framework of plywood boxes filled with snow and of course a ladder..

Tim- love the Garrya.. I think I've seen seed at Alplains- oops, no, that's flavescens...