Image of the day

[Booker]

Quiet on the forum at the moment, so a few images to enhance (?) your viewing pleasure.

Dianthus and grasses
Insects
Potentilla nitida
Pulsatilla alpina ssp. apiifolia
Saxifraga oppositifolia
Potentilla nitida
Potentilla nitida

[Todd Boland]

I'm longing for spring already and winter has just begun!

[cohan]

Quiet on the forum at the moment, so a few images to enhance (?) your viewing pleasure.

Dianthus and grasses
Insects
Potentilla nitida
Pulsatilla alpina ssp. apiifolia
Saxifraga oppositifolia
Potentilla nitida
Potentilla nitida

Always a delight to see these wonderful places

[Spiegel]

Cliff, your pictures are making me homesick for my "second home".

[Kelaidis]

Lori's stunning image of Veronica bombycina v. bolgardagensis really can't be beat...your garden must be something! Super rock work.

But I have recently been sorting images and found my shots of what I think is my favorite of the genus: see attached!

The first three are bolgardagensis, and the last is Veronica thymoides v. pseudocinerea...Love those blues!

[Booker]

Beautiful Veronicas, Panayoti.


A very Merry Christmas and a Happy and floriferous New Year to all forum administrators, posters, lurkers and visitors from an unseasonably warm Lancashire.

Callianthemum kernerianum

[Tim Ingram]

What extraordinarily beautiful veronicas Panayoti. I wish I could grow them like that here but have never managed - I suppose not hot and dry and light enough in the summer or cold enough in the winter. Have just ordered seed of bombycina and thymoides so my optimism is not dimmed!

[Todd Boland]

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all the forum members! Pictured is Oxalis 'Ione Hocker'

[Booker]

Magnificent oxalis, Todd.

Mark, the Aceriphyllum is to die for ... another to add to that ever expanding list.   

(Moderator note:  see split-off topic called "Mukdenia" for references to Aceriphyllum & Mukdenia:)
http://nargs.org/smf/index.php?topic=919.0

[Lori S.]

Cliff, thanks for your beautiful mountain photos!  I imagine that you, like I, spend the winter looking through them and reliving the wonderful days in the mountains!  I especially love seeing Potentilla nitida.

Your veronicas are gorgeous, Panayoti... the intensity of colour is stunning.  I've had V. thymoides ssp. pseudocinerea in a trough for many years but not performing anywhere near like yours... clearly your conditions are perfect for it.

As I've said before, Todd, your fabulous Oxalis just kill me!  (Whereas, in my conditions here, I kill them...   )

Mukdenia rossii is very seasonal-looking, Mark - a very handsome plant.  Cold zone readers may be pleased to note that it has been hardy here in my garden over many years, so is well worth a try in other cold areas.
(Note:  see split-off topic called "Mukdenia" for references to Aceriphyllum & Mukdenia:)
http://nargs.org/smf/index.php?topic=919.0

Here, to brighten a winter day, is a winner from the "seed-starting lottery" of a couple of years ago  (i.e. take a wild gamble on acquiring and growing seeds from plants for which essentially no information is available, and see what happens!  ):  Hypericum aviculariifolium ssp. uniflorum



(I've shown and talked about this species before but to recap...) I grew this from seed in 2010, and had germination in about 10 days at room temperature (no seed conditioning).  The seedlings were planted out in summer, 2010, and the burst into glorious bloom in 2011.  Seed came from M. Pavelka and was collected at 2500m, Dedegol Dag, Turkey.  I planted all the seedlings out either in crevices between tufa, or on the edges of the tufa garden in tufa gravel (which is where I had room at the time) and they all seem pretty happy, though the plant in the highest part of the tufa mound is best developed.

[McDonough]

MMmmm, I love the look of Hypericum aviculariifolium ssp. uniflorum, and I'm a big fan of Hypericum in general.  There is a caterpiller here that eats and devastates some of the smaller hypericums, not sure what it is, leaving the plants defoliated.

[Lori S.]

MMmmm, I love the look of Hypericum aviculariifolium ssp. uniflorum, and I'm a big fan of Hypericum in general.  There is a caterpiller here that eats and devastates some of the smaller hypericums, not sure what it is, leaving the plants defoliated.

I sent seeds to both the NARGS and SRGC seedexes, so there's a chance for people to try it!  I note that the height of the species is shown as "5 - 7.5 cm" in the NARGS seedlist, however, my plants are totally recumbent and only stand about 2 - 3 cm above the ground surface.

[McDonough]

Well, once again I missed something good in this year's NARGS seedlist... I blasted through it so quickly, but there were many other plant species that caught my attention, it can always wait until another year, or two, or three. Besides. I need to be more scientific to find out what eats my smaller Hypericums and see what sorts of defences could be employed to prevent defoliation.

[McDonough]

Notice: the discussion on Mukdenia has been moved to its own topic, find it in the The NARGS Forum > Plants and Gardens > Woodlanders > Mukdenia topic:
http://nargs.org/smf/index.php?topic=919.0

[Tim Ingram]

Lori - after seeing your picture earlier on of the Hypericum this is seed I have also ordered from Mojmir Pavelka. Good to hear your experiences with it. I have always liked the smaller hypericums too and remember a good article on the Mediterranean species by Nicholas Turland in the AGS Bulletin many years ago. For a while he distributed seed whilst running Northside Seeds.

Your garden never ceases to amaze me on the Forum. Have you written about it elsewhere? I think Elizabeth Lawrence was right when she wrote that all gardeners eventually aspire to become rock gardeners!