Image of the day

[McDonough]

Mine might turn a slight pink but that one is stunning!

Checked out the bulb frame at the Botanical garden today....Scilla miczenkoana in full bloom.  Mine outdoors is nearly open too....maybe by early next week it will be open along with some crocus if we get the 4 days of 8-10 C they are forecasting.

That's a beautiful Scilla, good winning proportion of flower and scape to the short spreading foliage.  I'll have to be on the lookout for that one.  I'm a sucker for that milky blue color too

[McDonough]

A daily-double, the final fling on Crocus malyi 'Sveti Roc' and the first bloom on the tiny dwarf tulip, Tulipa bifloriformis... even the crocus blooms are bigger, but it such a sweet little thing isn't it?  This Tulipa species, and the rather similar T. turkestanica, are confusing... but typically the dark-anthered ones are attributed to T. bifloriformis.  It's a good doer, and can easily be raised from seed, scratched in around the mother plant, seedlings flowering in 4 years.

[Hoy]

I think I have some plants of that tulip - if they are still alive. Tulip species almost never live long by me except some T. sylvatica. I have never observed seedlings either.
But I have to try that crocus, Mark!

[McDonough]

I think I have some plants of that tulip - if they are still alive. Tulip species almost never live long by me except some T. sylvatica. I have never observed seedlings either.
But I have to try that crocus, Mark!

Crocus malyi make loads of seed, which germinates like grass when sown outside.  Happy to send seed later this summer when ripe.

[Hoy]

Crocus malyi make loads of seed, which germinates like grass when sown outside.  Happy to send seed later this summer when ripe.

Thanks, Mark. I thought of buying corms from Janis Ruksans, but seed is better! You usually get more plants.

[Booker]

A beautiful Sebaea thomasii that won the Farrer Medal (for best plant in the show) at Cleveland national Alpine Garden Society Show in northern England yesterday (3rd April).  This was exhibitor; Tom Green's first Farrer Medal at any show.

CLEVELAND SHOW 2010

TOM GREEN - FARRER MEDAL WINNER
SEBAEA THOMASII - FARRER MEDAL WINNING EXHIBIT
VIEW OF ONE THE COLOURFUL SHOW BENCHES

[Todd Boland]

Maybe its sour grapes but I find these UK shows 'over the top'...spectacular plants but too primped and coddled.  Lets see how well that Sebaea would do outside!

[McDonough]

No doubt the plants shown are spectacular specimens, but these types of high-end plant competitions don't resonate with most North American rock gardeners as they don't have similar opportunity for plant shows, they don't really exist in the fashion as they do in the UK.  Local NARGS Chapters might have "plant shows", but these are very casual affairs, more for show-and-tell than a true competition.  I will also generalize that most North American rock gardeners are primarily outside gardeners, preferring to see what survives the open ground than coddling plants in greenhouses.

That said, I will still oggle (for hours) the delectable views of immaculately grown domes of Dionysia and other tasty treats that I see in the SRCG and UK plant show reports.  In fact, in your last photo, I spy Hepatica 'Millstream Merlin' winning 3rd place.  Since this was one of Linc Foster's best Hepatica hybrids, I would love to try growing it outdoors in my garden just about 120 miles northeast of the Millstream garden in Connecticut, so surely it should fair well here.  I would like the chance to photograph it in a garden setting, with leaves intact, not decorated with a sphagnum collar.

[IMYoung]

Maybe its sour grapes but I find these UK shows 'over the top'...spectacular plants but too primped and coddled.  Lets see how well that Sebaea would do outside!

Oh, Rick, as you wrote that the chances are that any UK exhibitor reading it would choke on their coffee!

Yes, it is true that a lot of the plants seen at alpine and rock garden club shows in the UK are bigger and blousier than any of their kind you will see in the wild.... and this in spite of much muttering a mong the judges about plants needing to be "in character" ... what a joke... the truth is no -one would be given a prize for a plant that truly reflected that species grown in nature: wind-blown, chewed by insects and grazing animals, one-sided from exposure.... no, a truly "natural" plant would win nothing!
But:it must be remembered that all these plants are native to some country, somewhere, where they certainly do grow in natural conditions ! 
The constraints of keeping them alive at all in the false conditions of cultivation (even if under glass because there is no way the plant could survive outdoors conditions in a country alien to its origin) often mean that it is a real triumph to keep the plant alive at all, let alone grow it to the magnificently robust proportions of the average show winner!
Yes, the shows are mostly about "theatre" and often times the big show winners are grown under glass (though in the UK, that is a sensible move for many plants.... if only for the survival of the rain soaked gardener!) but the sight of a show hall bursting with the glamour and colour of these spectacular exhibits is something to cheer the dullest day and saddest of hearts......and is a great day out to meet friends.
 Be generous, cut us poor Brits some slack!

[Todd Boland]

Don't get me wrong...the UK growers are obviously passionate about their alpines and you growers can grow them to perfection to say the least.  Still, to see them in the wild looking that good (they rarely do) or better still in a garden (even more rarely) seems more awe-inspiring, at least to my eyes.

Meanwhile, you Brits are on to something.....I think we growers in Newfoundland need to grow under glass as well....we get just as much if not more rain than the UK!  Ah, so many drylanders I'd like to grow.  I have to be content with growing some of these in the alpine house at work...maybe I should build an alpine house in my back yard!

[Booker]

It is nice to stir the tea leaves occasionally and see what brews!  I would be amazed if anyone in the U.K. can grow Dionysias or Androsaces to this show standard without resorting to cover from our heavy and regular precipitation?  Most of the keen growers don't need or use heat (an occasional spell in a fridge is a more likely scenario for most of these plants) and the best exhibits usually spend as much time without any form of protection as they do under glass.  I am not really partial to cut flowers at alpine events, but these tiny flower arrangements still attract my camera lens at every show.  I agree with Todd that it is magnificent to see a beautiful alpine plant growing in it's natural habitat in a magical mountain setting, but surely growing a plant in a pot is little different to growing it in a garden - they are both created habitats and of equal merit?
The tea is still brewing ... just awaiting another stir ...?

[McDonough]

It is nice to stir the tea leaves occasionally and see what brews!  I would be amazed if anyone in the U.K. can grow Dionysias or Androsaces to this show standard without resorting to cover from our heavy and regular precipitation?  Most of the keen growers don't need or use heat (an occasional spell in a fridge is a more likely scenario for most of these plants) and the best exhibits usually spend as much time without any form of protection as they do under glass.  I am not really partial to cut flowers at alpine events, but these tiny flower arrangements still attract my camera lens at every show.  I agree with Todd that it is magnificent to see a beautiful alpine plant growing in it's natural habitat in a magical mountain setting, but surely growing a plant in a pot is little different to growing it in a garden - they are both created habitats and of equal merit?
The tea is still brewing ... just awaiting another stir ...?

As a tea lover (only strong English or Irish tea, or selected varietal green teas please), I'll stir the tea leaves a bit.  There was an interesting discussion and series of photos on the SRGC "Hepatica" thread, with the focus almost entirely on flowers, and the fact that most often when displayed at plant shows in the UK the leaves are cut off, whereas in Japanese plant shows, they always have the leaves on.  I asked to see the leaves, and in some of them the leaves are beautiful indeed, like mottled leather.  One could argue endlessly about evergreen-leaved plants, like Asarum or Hepatica, whether to cut off the old leaves or not... so I'm not going there.

Instead, I will talk about a UK plant show "norm" of cutting off all leaves of certain plants, like some of the western American Allium such as A. falcifolium, leaving behind a wholly unnatural lollipop effect.  Now, it is true that some allium species tend to have foliage "going over" as the plants flower... that is how they grow and flower in nature.  It is also true, that if one were to look at plant photos as they occur in nature (CalPhotos is a good source), viewing western American Allium, sometimes the leaves are completely toasted by flowering time, other times they are beginning to dry, or the leaves can be in perfectly good shape... so they run the gamut of possibility.  The trick for people who grow such plants (this is where the skill factor comes in), is to give sufficient moisture in spring to maintain the foliage while the plants flower and not have the foliage die back too soon.

I upload a photo of Allium falcifolium (on the left) which has foliage still green at flowering, overshadowed by Allium platycaule at center stage, with dramatic falcate leaves... just starting to show dry tips.  To cut off the bold falcate leaves of A. platycaule just to enter it in a plant show (knowing that any sign of foliage "going over" will mark down the plant's possibility of winning) destroys the true persona of that plant.  Years ago I had a round of email communication with a well known SRGC member about this procedure, relative to A. falcifolium, yet I still find this unnatural technique used in the UK Plant Show photo galleries.

[RickR]

I take the UK shows for what they are: plants grown to perfection.  No one claims they emulate the growth of the plant in nature.  But I too, take more "pride" in seeing them in nature, rather than a garden or show.  Yet then, why is it that I try to grow so many of them?

Well, I do have an answer to that: though it is curiosity that often gets me started, for the most part I grow to learn.

And I see Marks point about display with natural foliage, be it live or dead.  Personally, I like the dried foliage of Iris reichenbachii that persists with the green leaves, giving a base of gnarly, curled, gray artistry.

[Hoy]

I would very much like to visit an English plant show, we have nothing like that in Norway. I would never participate in such a show, just to look at the plants! But you have to take the plants at the show for what they are: Products of skilled artists. And why not? Others compete with cutted flowers and manipulated leaves, stalks fruits etc.

I never remove leaves from the plants in the garden except when they are completely dead and don't lie down to rot!
And for the balance: Here's my picture for today, one with the tiniest flowers and completely wild-grown!

[Kelaidis]

Back from a truly whirlwind 11 day trip from Denver to California and back...with many, many impressions and fabulous experiences. I shall rejoin the forum with a picture I took last Wednesday at Quarryhill Botanical Garden in Sonoma, California (a fabulous place specializing only in plants of East Asia): they were growing this wonderful Dysosma there (I think it was D. versipelle but it could be D. pleiantha--I forgot to check the label!): it was growing in a trough which let one really get under the foliage--a shot not easily replicated in most gardens! I've tried growing this in Denver, but didn't have quite the right spot for it, and it has shrunk to nothing. We shall content ourselves with Podophyllum emodi (much less flashy, but pretty cool nonetheless) and tough as nails here. There are compensations for you all who live in wooded, shady, dank places....grrrrrrrr.