What do you see on your garden walks?

[Hoy]

What a terrific place you have there, Trond!  Pardon my ignorance, but does your fjord connect to the sea (salt water, or at least brackish?), or is it blocked off (hence, fresh water)... ?  

Thanks, Lori! We all love to be here. (Now my two daughters are travelling on their own - the eldest is in fact visiting LA these days!)
Yes, this fjord connects with the ocean. It's about 10min with my boat and I'll see the open sea (Skagerrak). A lot of small islands and skerries are sheltering us from the oceanic waves.

Are the Erigeron aureus planted out in your new mountain? If so it isn't strange they flower first year in such a pristine environment!
I am sorry i have never succeeded with Scutellaria orientalis from seed.

[Lori S.]

1, 2) Inula rhizocephala - while the plant in the tufa bed looks clean and pristine, these out along the sidewalk collect all manner of fine sand, spent salvia petals, pulsatilla seeds - you name it - on their fuzzy leaves.  I actually worked on them for a while with a brush before taking the photo... yeah, the neighbors already know I'm odd.  

3, 4) Saponaria suendermannii... I suspect this is a hybrid, as it doesn't seem to produce seed?

5) Phlox hendersonii - the bloom has sparse at any one time, but very extended this year.

6) A new prize, Caragana jubata.  (A gift from a gardening friend at work!   )

[Lori S.]

Yes, Trond, the Erigeron aureus are in the tufa bed, where I'm sure they will be happy, judging from their natural habitat here.

1) I lost my old Salvia juriscii this year, so was pleased to remember this little one along the sidewalk.   What bizarre and interesting flowers!

2) Erigeron pumilus var. condensata

3) Hieracium villosum

4) Scutellaria nana var. sapphirina - this little thing is a bit of a wanderer, but is so tiny, that I hope it will not seem a problem.   

5, 6) Silene saxifraga - I like this one a lot - pristine little flowers and a long bloom.

[McDonough]

4) Scutellaria nana var. sapphirina - this little thing is a bit of a wanderer, but is so tiny, that I hope it will not seem a problem.   

Lori, maybe Bob Nold will chime in on Scutellaria nana var. sapphirina.  He sent it to me many years ago, along with another small blue one, S. angustifolia, with "you've been warned" warnings about how invasive they can be.  Initially I grew mine in pots in a bark mulch "plunge" area, and they of course escaped their confinement in short order.  Eventually, S. nana v. sapphirina died out, but I still have S. angustifolia mildly romping about in the decomposing bark mulch layer over hard rocky clay soil.  I found a couple pics of S. angustifolia from June 2001.

[McDonough]

So, I was checking into Scutellaria nana var. sapphirina, and couldn't find it initially... what's going on I ask?  Seems that S. nana and S. sapphirina are now two separate species, but initially using the USDA pages and typical sites I use to find this info, wasn't coming up with much, but I did finally find the following:

USDA classification for Scutellaria
http://plants.usda.gov/java/ClassificationServlet?source=display&classid=SCUTE

This USDA classification cites S. nana var. sapphirina as a synonym of S. sapphirina... aha, found it
http://plants.usda.gov/java/nameSearch?keywordquery=Aria&mode=sciname

USDA page on S. sapphirina
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=SCSA6

USDA page on S. nana:
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=SCNA

CalPhotos page on Scutellaria nana (note: some great looking dwarf cream to pinksih-yellow dwarfs)
http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?query_src=photos_index&where-taxon=Scutellaria+nana

[Lori S.]

Ahhh, thanks for the warning!  I think I'll exile it to the hellish conditions of the front yard, where it can fight it out with fireweed, invasive native asters, and the remnants of Euphorbia cyparissias.

[Weiser]

 S. nana and S. sapphirina are both occur in Nevada.  S. sapphirina at high elevation in the southern mountans. S. nana is found locally in northern Nevada.
I have been thinking about hunting down S. nana, just haven't taken the time.
I think I have a leg-up though!  Gary Monroe the Photographer of S. nana on the USDA link is a very good friend, and Warm Springs Valley is only fifteen miles away. 

[Lori S.]

A rainy day here, after a hot one yesterday (28 deg C).

Nice to see the membership slowly rising.  Come on, folks - we'd all love to see photo-tours of your gardens!  

Not a very alpine-ish selection today:
1) Helianthemum nummularium 'Ben Nevis'
2) One of the many self-sown Verbascum phoeniceum... I used to refer to the colour of this plant, somewhat disparagingly, as "puce" but it's grown on me over the years.  
3) Silene zawadskii with a groundcover of Linnaea borealis, which also drapes down the side of the raised acid bed (4)
5) Last of the bloom for the Dodecatheon
6) Astrantia
7) Interesting seedpod on Papaver lapponicum
8 ) Talinum sediforme
9) Codonopsis clematidaea
10) Helianthemum oelandicum ssp. alpestre

[Hoy]

I have no objections to rampant plants! At least not if I can grow them here at my summerhouse. No formal beds, just seminatural plantings - that is native and foreign plants put down where they are supposed to thrive and spread! They have to cope with summer dryness and deer and trampling of sheep and people. I gladly receive rampant plants!

[Spiegel]

1, 2) Inula rhizocephala - while the plant in the tufa bed looks clean and pristine, these out along the sidewalk collect all manner of fine sand, spent salvia petals, pulsatilla seeds - you name it - on their fuzzy leaves.  I actually worked on them for a while with a brush before taking the photo... yeah, the neighbors already know I'm odd.  

3, 4) Saponaria suendermannii... I suspect this is a hybrid, as it doesn't seem to produce seed?

5) Phlox hendersonii - the bloom has sparse at any one time, but very extended this year.

6) A new prize, Caragana jubata.  (A gift from a gardening friend at work!   )

Lori, what a friend to have! Caragana jubata is a marvelous plant that I'm hoping to try. Yours looks really good. Ditto the Inula rhizocephala. I grew that once from seed and loved it. May garden at the moment is the Dolomites, have been taking many pictures but can't look at them on the computer since I left the camera connector at home. The other day I almost sat on Androsace hausmannii by mistake. The season is early and the plants have been fabulous!

[Lori S.]

Well, where I am usually reluctant to ask for things, he tends to be quite bold, so he got me this fabulous plant from another grower!   
We look forward to your photos, Anne!

[Lori S.]

1) A rather odd dianthus, Dianthus calocephalus, which has rather stiff grassy foliage and tall flowering stems with widely-spaced narrow leaves.  It's native to Iran, Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan.  From the NARGS seedex.  
http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/taxon.pl?13823

2) Edelweiss, Leontopodium alpinum

3) Athamanta turbith ssp. haynaldii - a long-blooming perennial here.
http://luirig.altervista.org/schedeit/ae/athamanta_turbith.htm

4) Another variation on the puce Verbascum phoeniceum (or hybrid thereof, as these are likely offspring of 'Helen Johnson', bought years ago, which I just read is said to be V. phoeniceum x bombyciferum?), this one approaching a pale yellow.  

5) Penstemon lyallii

6) Sideritis glacialis

[Hoy]

Lori, you have more interesting plants than I have words!

[Hoy]

Inspired by Lori's biking route!

Not my garden but a nice place to walk and see!

We have to take the boat 15 min to get there. This island is about 10km long and narrow consisting of glacial sediments from the last ice age.
On the sheltered inside the shore consists of fine quartz sand. The interior is mostly covered by deciduous trees and farms.
Cars are forbidden.

[Lori S.]

Very beautiful, Trond!  I love the stone wall and the rustic fence!  Lovely meadow and sea view in the first shot.