What do you see on your garden walks?

[Lori S.]

Very nice plants, Trond!  

The common catsfoot (Antennaria dioica) grows everywhere and has  all colours from red (OK Lori, PINK) to white and all melanges thereof...

Okay, we are in colour alignment now... though I must say your last one is as close to red as pink every gets!  

Interesting.... I never realized that the name A. dioica reflected that it was dioecious...  
By coincidence, a friend grew Thalictrum alpinum this year and gave me a couple of plants, so it's especially nice to see photos of the mature plants.

The Kentucky coffee tree has very different flowers, Rick.  How big has it gotten so far?  

A few things in the rock garden...
Ajania (Tanacetum) tibeticum, a bit big for its spot, but it will be moved when more space is available;  Campanula chamissonis, from seed a couple of years ago, starting to bloom:
 

I take it back... Potentilla porphyrantha is actually blooming quite well this year, for whatever reason; Potentilla rupestris 'Pygmaea':
 

Veronica thymoides ssp. pseudocinerea; Alyssum lepidoto-stellatum, from seed last year:
   

Elsewhere in the yard...
Lamium orvala (x2); Silene xrobotii 'Rolly's Favorite':

   

[cohan]

The Lamium is quite charming, just enough of an improvement over its weedy cousins (which i still sort of like, even though they sprout almost instantly here in almost any cleared soil...).. is it a woodlander?

[Hoy]

Not a bad selection you show either, Lori The pygmy P rupestris is interesting and P porphyrantha looks very good!

Cohan, here Lamium orvala is very good in shady woodland.

[Lori S.]

Thanks, Trond.
Lamium orvala is very nice in shade here too.

[cohan]

Thanks, Lori and Trond, I'll keep it in mind on my endless theoretical list 
Maybe I should start a real list, but I  find when I get to catalogues and trade lists, the species available are usually not the same ones I have seen someplace, so I just look up the new ones!

[Lori S.]

In the rock garden:
Centaurea epirota; Erigeron pinnatisectum; Lesquerella arizonica; Dianthus glacialis alpinus (a repeat), from seed last year:
     

The alpine campanulas are starting to bloom (I'll be boring you a lot with these in the next while!  )...
Campanula alpestris; Campanula saxifraga - actually a darker richer royal purple:
 

And elsewhere in the yard...
Castilleja miniata, Penstemon confertus and Antennaria dioica are starting to bloom:


A little penstemon I bought... I'll have to try to key it out... can anyone ID it and save me the trouble?  
 

And a mat-forming veronica, whose identity I failed to record!  Again, any ideas?:

[cohan]

Always lots of treasures My fave in this bunch is the Centaurea! ( I guess you'd have to say, 'fave what? fave plant for coolness, fave plant for garden impact?' for  coolness!)

[cohan]

When I planted these, from big box store bulbs, I was expecting spring bloom, along with the Scillas and retic Iris I planted at the same time... shows how much I knew on the plus side, they have performed much better in this bed than either of the above (maybe these appreciate the soggy springs they've had more than the others?)--they went in fall 09, and this year they have increased dramatically, with 4-6 flower stems per bulb.. they actually look quite nice with the Pulsatilla vulgaris (also multiplying, from two plants--should be a couple more in bloom next year|) in the same bed (many seed heads, but a few late flowers still) though I haven't managed a photo that really captures the effect.. I guess you wouldn't plant either with anything too delicate, but I don't mind if these spread a bit, though the bed's not that large...

Muscari                                                                           Pulsatilla vulgaris
(I forgot the name..something common and cheap)

                                          

[cohan]

When I first got this little Veronica a couple of years ago, I was disappointed when I realised the flowers weren't more like the ones Lori showed above! But you know, they kinda grew on me, especially those which are more liberally splashed with blue/violet..
I put one plant in a big pot I have Semps and Sedums in, and it croaked in the first winter, but seedlings came up later and are wending their way amongst the succulents (hopefully I wont regret that, but they don't seem vigorous enough here to be a problem), flowering again this year...
Veronica repens

   

Another pot was kept separate, I forget what happened to it, whether it had winter issues or dried out at some point, but I have some plants coming along in a couple of pots anyway.. showing a bit more blue here.... and one of the self sown clumps of Myosotis (sylvatica?) we were talking about, these at the weedy edge of an old bed, beside the rebuild-in-progress rock garden

 

[Lori S.]

Cohan, muscari are still in bloom here, and Iris reticulata finished very recently (may still be the odd one in bloom if I look hard) - both are later blooming among the spring bulbs, for me at least.  If you want earlier spring bulbs, plant crocus and puschkinia.  Scillas are later here than those two, but earlier than the bulk of the muscari.  Of course, this has been a late spring too...

[cohan]

Cohan, muscari are still in bloom here, and Iris reticulata finished very recently (may still be the odd one in bloom if I look hard) - both are later blooming among the spring bulbs, for me at least.  If you want earlier spring bulbs, plant crocus and puschkinia.  Scillas are later here than those two, but earlier than the bulk of the muscari.  Of course, this has been a late spring too...

I only have a few retic Iris, and only one flowered this year, and only several more came up at all--maybe they don't like the spring wet in this bed-- I didn't realise this spot is prone to being very very wet for some time: after it belatedly comes out of the snow, water runs there from farther back in the shade...lol However, that one Iris, along with the Scillas in the same bed, flowered looong ago (okay, maybe it just feels long...lol).. The Iris and Pulsatilla started in the second week of May, Scilla was about a week later in the same bed,  and I'm sure they all could have been a few weeks sooner in a sunnier, warmer bed (mind you, warmish weather just started in May); Cory solida was the same time, though in an even later to thaw  bed.. I'll be planting some seedlings .. of those in various places..

Hopefully I'll get a bed ready in a warmer spot this year, and crocus will be among the first things to get... I was kind of disappointed with these Muscari being so late, at first, but now, they are putting on such a nice show that all is forgiven...lol

In Toronto, the Iris reticulata were the first things to flower, if I remember right.........

[RickR]

Gosh Lori, you plants are never ending!  (As is our interest in them. )  
By the way, that supposed diminutive hybrid veronica I found (http://nargs.org/smf/index.php?topic=274.msg9053#msg9053) has turned out to be the weed - V.serpyllifolia, as you suggested.  I found it in the neighbor's garden, too.

Mark, I seemed to have missed your post mentioning my variegated Astrantia, until now.  Astrantia 'Sunningdale Gold' (name correction) is only variegated in the spring.  The variegation is almost completely faded to green already.  In addition, it took three to four years from planting to really show well.  Flowers are just a green-white, and fairly sparse compare to most astrantia.  Not a real winner in my estimation, but good enough to keep around.

Regarding the Kentucky Coffee tree, male trees are rather spindly growing compared to females, in general. My trees are good examples.  There are good selections of male clones that are very desirable.  The University of Minnesota has a nice male cultivar: Stately Manor.

The best pic I could get of my male tree on the south side of my house.  Behind the  Smoke tree (Cotinus obovatus) and the Green ash (that will eventually succumb to the Emerald Ash borer when it gets here), it is a simple seed grown tree from a local nursery.  

              

This is a female on the west side of my house.    Planted in 1994 as a three foot seedling dug from a friend's backyard.  The male tree was planted in 1993 as a potted seven foot tree.  They are now both about equal height, but the female, as expected, has a much larger complement of foliage.  In my opinion (others' will differ), the bean pods are quite ornimental, and stay attached through the winter.

              

 Note that Kentucky coffee trees leaf out very late in the spring and have huge doubly compound leaves.  Even now, in these photos the first leaves are only two-thirds their final size.  Like oaks, most of the growth is put out in one push in the spring/early summer.  These trees also are the first to color and drop leaves in the fall.  They are part of my "landscaping for energy efficiency" endeavor, allowing for maximum natural sun heating of the house through the spring and also in very early (and cool) fall and through the winter, while still providing shade in the hot months.  Because the leaves are so huge, twigs that remain through the winter are relatively sparse, and give the most minimal winter shade of any deciduous tree.

Of particular note at the base of the tree and to the right in the last pic, is a mature Atlantic Leatherwood (Dirca palustris).  It is notorious for resenting transplanting, yet it was just transplanted this spring from my garden.  I had been root pruning it for two seasons prior.  This is a very special plant for me, as it came from a fellow rock garden society member, who received it from May Wright, one of the original Minnesota native plant enthusiasts, who died many years ago.

[Lori S.]

Interesting, Rick.  I've never seen this tree (which is almost needless to say, I suppose).  I was just reading about it... leaves one to 3 feet long - wow!  How big do the leaves on yours get?

More info on Dirca palustris...
http://ontariotrees.com/main/species.php?id=2056

[cohan]

I think Kristl has offered seed of both of those species...
I'm really interested in small trees/shrubs for here--there are more tall trees than I would like (shade I do not need), but lots of spaces for things no more than 10-15 feet high.. have some seedlings of various things... and some empty pots...lol

[RickR]

Interesting, Rick.  I've never seen this tree (which is almost needless to say, I suppose).  I was just reading about it... leaves one to 3 feet long - wow!  How big do the leaves on yours get?

Most years they are are about 2.5 ft.  Less if they emerge during a dry spell.  I bet it would grow as a die back "herbaceous" plant in your Alberta climate.  Pawlonia does that here, and for those that grow it (just as a fun plant - no flowers), it gets 8-12 ft in one season.  I would think the Kentucky Coffee tree might grow 3-5 ft.   They are very easy from seed.  Just sand paper a corner off of the hard coating to imbibe water.  No pretreatment needed.