December 2007 in the Southern Hemisphere

[Lesley Cox]

A lovely orchid Fermi. Looks like an Australian native maybe?

[fermi de Sousa]

No, actually as far as I can make out it's from Madagascar!
I'm still waiting to hear if anyone on the Forum has some tips about growing it!
cheers
fermi

[Carlo]

I'm blooming a Madagascan orchid Oceoclades roseovariegata...with the most amazing black and pink leaves...give my a day or two to check the books and I can give you a bit of info on your plant...

[Carlo]

An old online issue of the Atlanta Orchid Society newsletter relates the following cultural information for Cynorchis:

porous compost in shallow pot or pan
lots of water while in growth, cut back when leaves begin to yellow
most species of the genus are at least partially deciduous
many are tuberous
related to Habenaria

[fermi de Sousa]

Thanks, Carlo,
You'll have to post a pic of your orchid - it sounds amazing!
cheers
fermi

[Maggi Young]

Thanks, Carlo,
You'll have to post a pic of your orchid - it sounds amazing!
cheers
fermi

You took the words right out of my keyboard, Fermi!

[fermi de Sousa]

Back to the garden this morning for a few more pics.
Firstly an absolute thug who is only forgiven when its flowers open! Campanula punctata "Wedding Bells"


And Dianthus erinaceus in as full a bloom as it ever gets!


cheers
fermi

[Lesley Cox]

I find with D. erinaceus that it needs heaps of water late Sept/early October until the buds are well advanced. Then it makes masses of buds and so long as the plant doesn't dry out they will form fully then open. I even get seed most years that I remember to give the water. This year I didn't and as a result of our hot very dry late spring, Oct through Nov and this last week, of December, I could show you plants with many hundreds of aborted buds, not a single proper flower opened and even the whole plants are almost dead, they're so dessicated. Yesterday and today, it is raining, thank you God, and almost dead plants of many speacies are reviving a little. Still some total losses though.

[t00lie]

The following on account of it's slow growth pattern might ,(at currently less than 45 cm in height ),just qualify for the time being as a small shrub for a large rock garden.

In any event the Southern Rata grows into an impressive canopy tree although on the Hump Track in Southern Fiordland i have seen old specimens as stunted shrubs less than 1.5 metres high on exposed ridgelines.

Despite the effects of browsing by the introduced possum ,the forests down this way during Dec and Jan show a blaze of crimson / red flowers.

Metrosideros umbellata 'moonlight'--A nice colour break with the variegated foliage.

Cheers Dave.

[Paddy Tobin]

Dave,

That is certainly a spectatular 'colour break' as you described it. A wonderful flower.

Paddy

[fermi de Sousa]

Nothing quite as spectacular as Dave's, here is a South African dwarf shrub, Relhania pungens.




Nearby is a cloud of tiny mauve flowers put up by Limonium bellidifolium


cheers
fermi

[fermi de Sousa]

A good groundcover which I posted last year as well is the Aussie "spreading goodenia", Goodenia heterocoma




As summer progresses, the oreganoes come into their own. Here is a patch of seedlings of Origanum ? laevigatum?


And a seedling of it crossed with O.rotundifolium: we call it "Redesdale Rasta" as the braids of bracts elongate later in the season!


cheers
fermi

[Martin Baxendale]

I've just found seed of Metrosideros tomentosa in a catalogue here (Chiltern Seeds) and wondered if it might be worth trying. Any advice from yous lot up above in NZ (up, down, it's all subjective - and always being "down" oppresses the southern hemisphere, so up the downers!)

Seriously though, any advice? Any special treatment needed for metrosideros seed, will it be very slow to get to a decent size, etc.

[Lesley Cox]

I've germinated ratas quite easily Martin, just on my usual seed mix, scattered into a grit topping. The seeds are very fine, not unlike those of rhododendron and wind-distributed. They will be very slow till several years old I should imagine, but then they seem to speed up and grow to enormous trees but that could be a couple of hundred years. There's one in flower now outside the Otago Museum in Dunedin, definitely planted by people, i.e. not in its "natural" habitat and it could be 100 years old or more at perhaps 15 metres.

[Martin Baxendale]

Thanks Lesley. I'm very tempted by Dave's pics of Metrosideros umbellata to have a go with the seed. I was just hoping it'd be big thunking seeds that'd shoot up like rockets early on. Anything that's slow to start with has little chance with me and my erratic seedling care due to work pressures (except for the snowdrop seedlings of course - they get twice daily attention and cosseting!)