Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Bulbs => Ian Young's Bulb Log - Feedback Forum => Topic started by: annew on June 09, 2010, 10:51:00 PM
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Your garden just fed my soul too, Ian. The trough and raised bed area especially is absolutely stunning, and I love that deep purple Corydalis.
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I also enjoy your bulb logs Ian. Especially No 23,I try to grow in troughs but nothing like yours,Thank you for showing them.
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Magnificent log yet again. Ian - I wonder what the smashing red rhododendron is in the last shot and how you captured the colour so vividly. Thank-you for allowing Maggi a tad of space for it. ;)
johnw
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The red rhodo is the old hybrid 'May Day', flowering a little later this year than she usually does. 'May Day is a griesonianum x haematodes cross. Very reliable plant, flowers well and a pleasing rich but bright shade of red.
Another similar hybrid, this time dichroanthum x griersonianum,the more orange/apricot coloured 'Fabia' is just out of shot , further to the left and dichroanthum itself is also in flower at the moment.... I'll post photos when I find 'em!
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Mmm... can't find the dichroanthum anywhere... will retake tomorrow.
Here is Fabia close up and Mayday .....
Fabia flowers have lovely spotting and a nice big calyx. Fabia's flowers are around one third larger than May Day's ....both types have long lasting flowers.
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This is Rhodendron dichroanthum, whose flowers are very nearly the same colour as 'Fabia', and also have a prominent calyx . The flowers of this species are approx. the same size as those of 'MayDay'
'Fabia', as I ought to have mentioned before, is a dichroanthum x griersonianum hybrid which won an Award of Merit in 1934... another oldie!
Individual flowers of each appear much paler to the eye, partly due to their translucence.
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Lovely things, seemingly made from wax. :) Old vars are just as good as the newer ones. My daughter gave me a very nice coffee mug on Mothers' Day. The colour was a lovely graduated blue through turquoise and on it, was the text "If older is better, I must be approaching magnificent!" (Cheeky moo :))
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I have lots to catch up on reading the bulb logs, they're most interesting. Ian and Maggi, the troughs are outstanding, such lush planting. I am particularly taken by Corydalis capitata and pseudobarbisepala, both section Elatae. I see that hand pollinating is being tried, and bees are stealing, how about on C. capitata, ever get seed? If C. pseudobarbisepala is that gorgeous, I can only imagine what C. barbisepala is like ;D
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Some lovely pictures of your garden and troughs, I did wonder about weeding in your garden as there were so many seedlings everywhere when l was there, wish I had more plants seed around my garden.....passed your house the other day and your drive was looking first class 8) pity others wouldn't copy you.
Angie :)
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Thanks all for the kind comments the garden brings us great delight every day of the year both as a whole and from all the individual plants.
I cannot tell you how many times we have had 'workmen' at our door offering to clear up our overgrown garden and lockblock our weedy drive!!!! The nerve - to date they have all survived but workmen take warning - I am not called the despot for nothing ;D ;D
I love playing with my troughs where you can redo the whole thing in a hour or two and create yet another mini landscape.
McMark Corydalis capitata does set seeds without any need for me to fertilise and I have my fingers crossed hoping for some seeds on C pseudobarbisepela.
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We have in tyhe past been very lax about collecting Corydalis seed but we will try with Corydalis capitata and C. pseudobarbisepala to be vigilant and catch a crop!
Interestingly,I noted yesterday that the vivid turquoise of the C. pseudobarbisepala flowers changes as the flowers mature and becomes the same colour as C Craigton Blue ...which one would never suspect from the initial colour of the pseudobarbisepala. Funny things, colours! ???
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Funny things, colours! ???
Funny things, plants 8)
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Fascinated by your comment that the first seedling seems to emerge at the side of the pot.
I have also noticed this and wondered why. Could it be warmer or more moisture? Or are they sneaking up there hoping not to be noticed??
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Fascinated by your comment that the first seedling seems to emerge at the side of the pot.
I have also noticed this and wondered why. Could it be warmer or more moisture? Or are they sneaking up there hoping not to be noticed??
I think you are correct - it is both the extra warmth and moisture around the edge of the pot in the case I showed this week.
Can extra air in the compost be a factor? When you take cuttings they always do better placed around the edge of the pot.
Another factor that causes seeds to germinate around the edges I have observed are when fine seeds are washed to the edge of the pot.
That is not the case with the Arisaema because they have quite large seeds and I sowed them at a depth of about 2cms.
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Should we then adopt a practice of sowing seeds (irrespective of depth) towards the edges of pots.
Is this likely to improve germination rates or growth rates or will they all catchup in the long run?
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I have done experiments with Arisaema seeds. I split seed batches of 3 (one tropical, one subtropical, one temperate) species in half, sowed one half straight into my normal sowing medium and one half in ziplocks with moist vermiculite. Once germination started in the ziplocks I transplanted them to the same sowing medium. With all 3 species the vermiculite versions came up a couple of days earlier above soil than the ones sowed straight into the same medium. The ziplocks and sowing pots were all in a kitchen cupboard so temp was the same for both and I transplanted to the same depth as the sowed ones. My guess is air is indeed an important factor, albeit not to such an extend that they germinate weeks earlier. If Arisaema seed is viable at room temp most seedlings will come up within a month after sowing anyway and I could not see any differences in % that came up.
Still I would not advise to sow in vermiculite because transplanting into growing medium poses a risk (breaking the radicle etc....). For this reason I have never understood why the Reno method got so popular, certainly given the fact that the Reno method was developed to see the moment of germination, not as a new sowing technique.... ???