Flowering now in the garden March 2009

[gote]

Thank you John,
I will have your pictures in mind when I start in the garden in the spring.
Göte

[kap-horn]

Sigh!    I need definetly more space in my garden !
Thanks for the great pictures!

Karin

[Paddy Tobin]

John,

Great to see your photographs of the garden again this year and again it is absolutely wonderful.

Celandine are certainly a nuisance weed, inevitable in a rural garden, and have to be tolerated to, at least, a certain degree in a garden which aims at naturalisation of introduced plants.

I noticed a planting of Ophiogon platanus 'Nigresens' in one of the photographs. Here, this spreads to form large clumps which are so thick that other plants cannot compete so I wondered if it proved a threat to your bulb plantings. I certainly could not see cyclamen, crocus nor eranthis competing with it.

Paddy

[art600]

Ian says you must get your nose to the flower....

and your fingertip or a small paintbrush to the anthers and stigma.

Lesley
I am sure it was said it does not set seed at the Frit Day at Wisley.  

[chasw]

That is excellent Derek,I have had mine for about 4years now and am still waiting for it to flower,but must not grumble, this is my second attempt at it,so am pleased that it still survives

[Gerdk]

Just a little bit of sun - so some colour in the garden

Eranthis, Leucojum and tommies

Gerd

[Hristo]

Flowering in the garden now - flowering under the snow more like! 
The cyclamen coum in the gadren have been flowering for around one month now though they have only been visible for a week or two during that time!
Gymnospermium albertii uner the micromeria in the open garden should be looking nice soon.
Crocus 'Blue Dream' one day after the snow melted away.

[Sinchets]

Flowering now, as it has been doing for the past month, albeit under snow, a Thlaspi I bought as Thlaspi biebersteinii.  I am not sure as to the authenticity of this name, as I see RHS Plant Finder lists this as a synonym of Pachyphragma macrophyllum, which it certainly isn't. The original plant came from Findlay Clarke, back in the day, at a time when they still bought a small selection of alpines from Tough Alpine Nursery.

[derekb]

Ian says you must get your nose to the flower....

and your fingertip or a small paintbrush to the anthers and stigma.

Lesley
I am sure it was said it does not set seed at the Frit Day at Wisley.  

Arthur you are right Rannveig told me it is thought all plants came from one and it is not self fertile

[derekb]

Derek
Well done - how long have you had the plant?  My first attempt to grow this failed, though I have been more successful with the traditional frits

It was given to me at the last south show at Horsham so I would guess 5 years, I find it easy to grow but hard to flower, once the spring realy comes it will go outdoors near the water tank and repot about May June and stays outside until November then inside on a warm sunny bench in the Alpine House but no heat in the winter.
   Derek

[johngennard]

Art 600,
The main weed at the outset was creeping thistle,this area having been a pony paddock.Just hard work I'm afraid and very frustrating.

Paddy,
Well spotted and you are right,it does tend to spread but not out of control.I do find that cocus tomasinianus will seed itself in the clump and it does look very good amongst the dark foliage.

[Paddy Tobin]

Well, John,

I reckon if you managed to deal with creeping thistle then the ophiopogon would be no trouble to you. It has one great advantage - people who visit the garden regularly admire it, it lifts very easily and this is a great way to get rid of some of it.

Paddy

[art600]

Martyn Rix, at the Frit Day, said he had acquired a plant from a location about 100 km from the type location.  He hoped it would be a different clone, so that there might be a possibility of seeds.

Wonder what Otto is growing 

[Maggi Young]

It has happened before, and doubtless will again, that a plant is deemed sterile and then something happens, weather, whatever, there is seed set!

 Alf Evans wrote in his book, The Peat Garden"  that Scolipus bigelowii was sterile..... it had just not set seed for him..... sets seed here  and eleswhere, quite happily. Oftentimes these presumptions are made and repeated, it happens with names and mistakes in naming, too.  Human error 
When our Frit davidii flowers, we'll be tickling it for sure! Hope costs nothing!

[art600]

It has happened before, and doubtless will again, that a plant is deemed sterile and then something happens, weather, whatever, there is seed set!

When our Frit davidii flowers, we'll be tickling it for sure! Hope costs nothing!

And can I be first in the queue for seed - please