What do you see on your garden walks? 2012

Love the Draba, Lori!
The stone behind the Gentiana looked like running water in the thumbnail, and I thought OMG, your run-off is even worse than mine, I just have trickles! lol Of course I'd love to have a real stream in the garden.....

Hoy wrote:

You definitly grow some gems, all of you!

I went for a walk today visiting some of the wild populations of Hepatica nobilis on the island where I have my summerhouse. The usual blue form dominate in all populations except two. One consists almost completely of red (pink Lori?) flowered specimens and in the other 30-40% are red (and a few white). However, you can find red ones here and there other places too.

These are great, Trond- love the deep colours and pinks are very nice!

I just saw the first bulb emerging (apart from Cory I saw already a couple of days ago)! Probably a crocus... so far the first and only of the bulbs I planted last fall...lol

RickR wrote:

Nice to see things really gaining steam now, Lori.  There was that many stems on F. palliflora last season?  Do you expect more sprouts still to emerge?

It looks like the same number of stems as last year - 2; more would be nice though, if that's what happens!  It's funny that I didn't even plant any F. pallidiflora out there... the bulbs may have been in the roots of a perennial that I moved.  If the bulbs had been mixed in with other bulbs being planted, you'd think we would have noticed (from the skunky smell, if not from the different appearance.)  The woody stems immediately behind the green shoots are some larger perennial that will emerge later.

Wow, just beautiful, Trond!  If I had hepatica like that in my woods (if I had woods  :rolleyes:), I don't think I'd even bother growing them in the yard!

Nice rock garden vignette, Trond! Besides the Delo, and Semp off to the right, what is at the left with small reddish rosettes- Rosularia? and what are the variegated grassy leaves?

I agree - very attractive and colourful!  Are the striped leaves crocuses?

More assorted crocuses:
   

Adonis vernalis emerging:

The first waterlily blooms of the season in the greenhouse, Nymphaea 'Helvola':

And with a sunny day warming the soil yesterday, I killed the first lily beetle.  :P

Several woodland species coming into their own at the moment:-

The Doronicum (caucasicum?) is always a nice surprise early in the season, and here is planted with cyclamen and Corydalis temulifolia 'Chocolate Stars'.

Nearby is another good combination, Tiarella cordifolia and Primula 'Strong Bear' (curious name for a very good deep blue double).

The finest wood anemone in the garden, A. nemorosa 'Allenii'. This is only just beginning to flower and has very large, beautifully soft-blue flowers, though perhaps not best placed under a magnolia that has just finished flowering!

Lori-- lots of nice crocuses! sorry about the lily beetle :(
Several weeks after the winter snow melted from the bed (much of which was quite cool with frequent snow) I finally have a few noses poking (barely) above ground- Crocus and Galanthus, I think.. there was only one yesterday, but a few more today, and with next couple days around 20C, should finally see some progress!
The bad news- looks like maybe vole damage in my older spring bed that has Pulsatilla vulgaris a few bulbs, Muscari etc  too soon to say what they have damaged, hopefully not too much....

Tim, more nice plant combinations! That is a nice A nemorosa :)

Thanks, Trond- nice Rosularia! I did think after I typed that they could be Crocus.. mine are about 1cm tall so far....lol

Nice waterlily.. we have a wild one around here  too, its yellow.. I don't see it much though,(and not close) since it is in quite inaccessible places here- in (presumably) deep water preceded by sometimes large areas of slough/bog, water, mud etc.. best chance is if a road or trail cuts through those areas and gets you nearer to the deep water..

That somehow seems quite a surprise to see waterlilies like that; I've only seen them in gardens. Interesting website with fine scenery - what are the rock drawings that are shown?

Hoy, this is so lovely to see!
I would like to take a walk there.

Thank you for taking us with you.

Lina.

Beautiful pictures Hoy. The morninglight through the leaves in the wood, perfectly catched in your (damaged) camera.

cohan wrote:

Nice waterlily.. we have a wild one around here  too, its yellow.. I don't see it much though,(and not close) since it is in quite inaccessible places here- in (presumably) deep water preceded by sometimes large areas of slough/bog, water, mud etc.. best chance is if a road or trail cuts through those areas and gets you nearer to the deep water..

That would be spatterdock, Nuphar variegatum.  There is a true water lily also, Nymphaea tetragona, which has white flowers, but I've yet to see it!

Trond - it is amazing how Anemone nemorosa grows with hardly anything else flowering at the same time. In Blean woods near us (and Canterbury) it grows just like your pictures, but in other places under coppice it is mixed with bluebells and celandine. Very wonderful to see it en masse as in your photos.

Great stuff!

Trond, the seashore plants are nice, but the Anemone woods are especially lovely :) As Tim mentions, it always fascinates me to see such solid growth of anything, pretty much unheard of here.. the pinkish ones are especially nice...

Anne- love the Hymenoxys, and the view of the Rhodo with the lovely stone house behind is really nice :)

Lori, I don't think I've seen the white waterlily either, though I was happy to see the native water arum once (Calla? too lazy to look it up right now...lol)

Extremely dry and warm spring.  Now 3 to 4 inches of rain and possibly a low of 30F next Monday.
Charles, NE Massachusetts USA Z 6a +/-

Great Pediocactus! My favourite genus of hardy cacti :)
Love the yellow tulip too :)
Just heard about that storm going through the east- hope you get some good moisture with no damage..
Its turned opposite here- into the low to mid 20'sC the last couple of days and tomorrow (31C forecast for Medicine Hat in southern Alberta) but then temps will drop back to more normal low teens C..
We now have that interesting spring phenomenon- we still have sizeable snow banks on parts of the property, summer temperatures, and mosquitoes!

Cohan, Todd thanks for your comments.  Have about 7 species of barrel cacti, every winter I hold my breath, but so far they have come through.  Way back when, I angled a sash over a trough for the winter against a south wall; but I've gotten lazy and they're on their own.  They're in at least 20 inches of sand mix above grade and against a free standing brick wall.  I kept finding different sources of sand so it's a bit of an archiological site.  I'm moving toward 90% sand with some limestone gravel (and some dirt), but I haven't gotten there yet.
Many of my cacti came from Beaver Creek in BC.  Penstemons and Astragalus/ Oxytropis seem to have settled in too, at least the ones that lived long enough for me to plant them.  Lewisia rediviva has 2 buds.  I planted one under a stone and one in the open, the stones get infested with ants, so the one in the open is better.
Charles MA USA 6a

I looked for the leaves of Erythronium dens-canis several times on the weekend and saw nothing... today, I come home and not only are the leaves up but this one's in bloom!  :o   (Sheesh, am I that unobservant?!?)

They look cool at that stage, Rick! I like the plant, makes me think of mini Petasites...

Lori- just missed it, or were they that fast in the warm weather? Seems too fast, though...lol

Charles - really interesting that you grow those cacti in such deep sand and are also trying astragalus and oxytropis. So far I haven't done too well with these but would love to grow more of them successfully. I think Anne also mentioned that her sand beds were very deep. Probably I haven't made them on a big enough scale. The Veronica (bombycina?) is a super plant.

Spiegel wrote:

but Paeonia mlokosewitschii made it through OK.  This has the added attraction of fire-red seed heads in the fall. 

Wonderful specimen in great form. Hopefully it exceeds it's reputation of flowering for a week and looking at it's best for 4 hours.
....but then, how many other cherished plants might deserve that reputation?

Charles MA USA

Beautiful sights in everyone's gardens!  

Some sunshine today has brought out the flowers...
Corydalis solida 'George Baker', 3 plants bought last year:
   

Jeffersonia dubia:

Pulsatilla vulgaris (x2), and P. vulgaris 'Papageno' (x2):
     

Narcissus 'Tete-a-tete':

Lots of colour, Lori- your Jeffersonia is looking great!

Lovely garden visit, Rick! This Thlaspi actually looks something like the only one we have here (the weed)  ;D --I know this one is smaller and cuter with bigger flowers, though the one I saw blooming a week or more back was actually very tiny..lol

That reminds me that the greenest patch so far on my sparsely planted new rock planting from last fall is Taraxacum- even though its pseudo-roseum..lol

Enjoying everyones garden shots.
A few more: Fritillaria pallida, Asperula (gussonii or pontica), Dracocephalum imberbe, Lamium garganicum, Houstonia caerulea, and Delosperma (? sp. Reznicek).
The Dracocephalum and the Lamium move about in the sand bed, never staying in place for more than a couple of years.  Houstonia grows here in barren clay soil or barren sandy clay soil, but this large bun was a commercial plant -- generally in the wild the plants without flowers are about an inch across and not much more than 1/4 inch high
Charles, Massachusetts USA z 6a, 40+ inches rain

Charles, some really choice selections!
Trond- I like your weeds! I wonder if R ficaria is hardy and/or weedy here? the mix of yellow and white is nice...

I'm with Trond on those mertensias - what a sight! I only have one plant in my garden which has never increased. Something about those blues.