Epimedium 2012

[McDonough]

One of the latest blooming eppies is Epimedium elongatum, from Sichuan Province, China, found in mountains between 9,000-12,000 feet.  It is a delightful species, with rounded crimp-edged leaves; a refined upright grower with flower stems reaching 2' (60 cm).  The first flowers are just beginning to open, small red outer sepals and yellow ascending spurs, the flowers about 1/2 the size of the great yellow spiders of E. membranaceum (also starting to flower now, another late bloomer).  Notice how glandular the stems are on E. elongatum.  Suggested to be cold hardy to at least Zone 4.

Epimedium elongatum:





A hybrid showing some appealing pastel leaf coloration, another one selected for the foliage.




A sempervirens hybrid that's very unique, although I'm at a loss to explain the possible parentage, aside from sempervirens.  The spring foliage is heavily speckled red unlike any other eppie in the garden, it has handsome sprays of white flowers, wide clear white sepals that curve downwards, and light yellow cups, the flowers quite visible at first.  Later, the foliage overtakes the stems, but flowering continues for many weeks.  This one has deep leather-red evergreen winter foliage (last photo, taken Dec. 17, 2011).

selected E. sempervirens hybrid:





Epimedium sp. "The Giant" is starting to take off, making many tangled sprays of warm tan-color blooms, great narrow spiders, the mouth of the spurs are toasted a dark brown color, marvelous!

[gerrit]

Maybe you can start building a pergola above your giant in order to relax in its shadow.

[Krish]

Krish, I'm wondering if the Epimedium purchased as 'Pink Champagne' is of mistaken identity,  it looks more like 'Pink Elf' to me.  Here's a few links to compare. 
Regarding hardiness, hard for me to comment on plants for your Zone 3 climate; I know that many Epimediums are rated to Zone 4; so you might need to experiment.  those I have lost over winter were in a highly weakened state after a summer and fall of severe drought.

Mark I think you are right.I came across many nurseries having wrong labels.But I am not very familiar with these plants to tell the difference. The Epimedium lishihchenii flowered nicely last year but the last  dry fall weather might have affected it.

[Krish]

sorry I messed up my quote again

[McDonough]

Krish, Epimedium lishihchenii is one that I lost in the drought of summer-fall 2010.  While it was alive going into winter 2010-2011, it was so weakened by drought that it perished that winter; it was a large and impressive mature clump; beautiful leathery veined foliage and large yellow spider flowers.  This species was available on the Garden Vision Epimedium catalog this year, and I bought a replacement.  It shall be very interested to see how various Epimedium species and hybrids do for you in a Zone 3 climate, there's so little information out there on eppie cold hardiness, please keep reporting your experiences with them.

By the way, when quoting messages on the forum, you can use the quote button. If you edit any of the quoted information, perhaps to shorten it, be sure to leave the opening "quote" (the word "quote" by itself within a pair of brackets), followed at the end with a final "/quote" also within brackets, all of which is then followed by your own response.   I hope that helps

[Lori S.]

Is this really E. x cantabrigiense, Mark?  The flowers are very small and rather washed out.

[McDonough]

Is this really E. x cantabrigiense, Mark?  The flowers are very small and rather washed out.

I think it could be E. x cantabrigiense indeed, a hybrid between E. alpinum and E. pubigerum; the very small flowers certainly have the right flower shape.  It is variable in color, and can be pale salmon.  There are darker red-&-yellow forms, that at least in the US, have been dubbed by Epimedium master Darrell Probst as E. x cantabrigiense "Red Form", that named form originating from Jerry John Flintoff.  Here are 4 photos of the "red form".

[McDonough]

Late-flowering eppies continue to flower, including E. elongatum, membranaceum, and many of the hybrids with membranaceum, rhizomatosum, and davidii.  The eppies were prolific with seed this year, although I missed most of it when I was travelling to Dallas Texas one week, but did manage to catch seed of some varieties, to attempt growing on open-pollinated progeny.

Epimedium elongatum is a late bloomer, still looking good and starting to produce pods (still waiting for them to mature):




E. fangii didn't bloom this year, not sure why, but it makes up for it with truly unique and attractive foliage.




I have this one rather strange Epimedium hybrid took 4 years to flower from seed, which I thought to be a hybrid of E. rhizomatosum, but I'm not really sure what it is.  It has very late sprouting foliage, which is low, small, and crinkly, of a bluish-green color, and cascading stems of very small white and yellow flowers.  In the close-up view, notice the abundance of developing seed pods (which have been harvested and sown).

Epimedium - rhizomatosum hybrid?




One that flowers late and for a very long time (still in bloom now) is another E. rhizomatosum hybrid, with nice big yellow incurved spidery flowers.  Notice the worm on the 2nd photo, which was starting to eat into a developing seed pod; occasionally I find such evidence of worm holes drilled into seed pods of Epimedium and Iris.




Epimedium seed - bagged and cleaned.  My latest practice is to use plastic baggies to collect epimedium seed pods that are plump and ready to open, within a couple days most pods will open and spill seed on their own, the seed staying fresh and plump in the baggies.  Once cleaned, they're sown in peat flats and left out in the open in a shaded location, and kept watered all summer, for germination next spring.




I've shown this method before, but I will often use twigs cut-to-fit to divide a flat into 2-3 sections for sowing diferent varieties.  I cover the seed thinly with soil, then top-dress with fine decomposed pine bark mulch.  Last, I cover with wire mesh to keep chipmunks and squirrels from digging and eating the seed, seemingly a favorite food for such vermin.  

Left photo:    open-pollinated seed of "Mark's Star" on the left and E. brachyrrhizum on the right.
Center-right: protected seed flat of open-pollinated E. ilicifolium.

[McDonough]

Left:  in spite of continuous tunneling by moles in this bed of young 2nd-year hybrid Epimedium seedlings, most seedlings have survived the battlegrounds.

Right:  self-sown Epimedium seedlings presents a quandry, what do I do with all the seedlings?  This past winter, being as mild as it was, there must be thousands of self-sown epimedium seedlings this year.  I've been in process of digging them up and planting them in peat flats; I can fit 30 seedlings per flat.  The goal is to eventually row these out in new beds, see what they produce in their 3rd year, then decide if any are "keepers", otherwise they will be donated to the local Garden Club annual plant sale each spring.  In the photo, the flats with wire over them and nothing green showing, are some of this year's Epimedium seed that was collected and sown.

[McDonough]

One particular Epimedium membranaceum hybrid (membranaceum x rhizomatosum) is standing out as an excellent ever-bloomer, hasn't missed a beat throughout July and August so far; keeps making low sideways branches filled with yellow flowers.  How nice to have epimediums putting on a show here in mid-late August.  In growth, the plant is tighter and lower growing than regular E. membranaceum.

[Hoy]

And when can we look for this one at the local nursery selected and named by Mark McDonough? I would buy at least 3 specimens!

[McDonough]

Following up on the Epimedium membranaceum hybrid shown 2 messages above (cross is E. membranaceum x rhizomatosum), it just gets better and better, flowering non-stop.  Here it is, near the end of October, and it is still forming new stems and buds, with big sprays of incurved golden flowers... there are hundreds of flowers and buds.  I have decided to name this hybrid, it's the only one out of many similar crosses that so consistently flowers non-stop into autumn. Two views of this everbloomer, photos taken on this rainy late September day.

[RickR]

And when can we look for this one at the local nursery selected and named by Mark McDonough? I would buy at least 3 specimens!

  How about Epimedium 'ReMARKable' ...  Kinda catchy, wouldn't you say?
A very apt description.  The hybrid is quite a breakthrough, isn't it?

[McDonough]

How about Epimedium 'ReMARKable' ...  Kinda catchy, wouldn't you say?
A very apt description.  The hybrid is quite a breakthrough, isn't it?

That's very funny, but I LIKE IT, a catchy name to be sure.  I was going to follow up with a plea for suggestions of a proper name, I agonize over such things. I will give it serious consideration, although a name-play that depends on capitalization might fall short.  After growing an extensive collection of Epimedium, I wondered why no one has focused on the very few late species, such as everblooming membranaceum, to a lesser extent late-blooming rhizomatosum, to develop all-season flowering epimediums. I would love to get such plants flowering in pink and other colors; there is always another year.

[McDonough]

Another hybrid seedling catches my eye, the one shown below is E. (stellulatum x membranaceum) x various hand-made crosses, including E. wushanense "Spiney leaf form" and ilicifolium.  The leaf shape here is very spine-edged, much more so that than either species, so I look forward to seeing the flowers this spring, 3 years from seed.