Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Specific Families and Genera => Saxifraga => Topic started by: Jlynx on November 14, 2011, 03:58:37 PM
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This is my first year growing Saxifrages. I live in the northern suburbs of NYC, close to Stonecrop Gardens in Cold Spring, NY. I have three troughs now and wanted to post some pictures. Please share your pictures of troughs with saxes.
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Hello Jlynx, good to have you join us.
I think you will really enjoy growing Saxes.... they are such a varied group and so many are ideal for trough culture.
You can see some of our troughs planted with Saxifragas in Ian Bulb Log ...http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/index.php?log=bulb
And I hope you know about the special organisation for Sax lovers:
http://www.saxifraga.org/default.asp ? 8)
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If you do a search of the Forum for Troughs... you will find quite a few pictures of troughs with saxes in other threads..... popular subjects for many growers!
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Thanks. I am a member of the Saxifrage Society and have found their materials helpful. I submitted a "beginner saxer" article to them which will hopefully be published. Year one with the saxes has been an interesting experience to say the least.
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Please post pics of your saxes this fall for us beginners. I have some Collosa and 'mixed Paniculata' seed coming soon and will give that a shot. Should I use the outside "baggie approach" that I have been reading about. I am anxious to see how my saxes (about 40) do this late fall/winter in troughs and some in tufa. Thanks
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I am no expert grower but here is my approach to the saxy question!
I have no through but grow some of my saxes on the shed roof - not unlike a through though. Sorry no names! They have survived for several years. The two last pictures show saxes on the ground - growing on rocks. The mossy one has it roots in a crevice behind the stone.
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Cool idea growing them on roof of shed. Thanks for adding pics.
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I visited the New York Botanical Garden today with the wife and kids. They had a pretty nice Rock Garden with Saxes, Androsace, Lewisas, drabs, etc. I was a little disappointed with their troughs though. They have an incredible train show with replicas of famous NYC landmarks and bridges all made from plant or natural materials.
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Hi Jlynx,
I visited New York Botanic Garden a few years ago and I too was disappointed with their troughs. We grow quite a lot of encrusted Saxes in troughs and small corner patches so I will try and sort a few out to post.
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Okay I have searched through the pictures and these are all of Saxes in troughs or small dedicated or raised beds. Sorry I don't have names for all of them.
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Could someone suggest a name for this one please? I have it labelled just Saxifraga so must have been unable to read the seed label when I planted it in the trough. Just the one stem, the first, but that makes the foliage very visible. Could it be S. crustata?
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A pic of Saxifraga crustata here fo comparison Lesley. Foliage looks very similar to yours.
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Great posts. It definitely looks like Crustata.
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Lesley's plant is not S.crustata, it could be S.callosa var Australis or
even a Ss. callosa x cochlearis hybrid which would make it
S. x farreri.
S. callosa always has a glabrous flower stem, it looks like
this plant has some cilia on the stem.
David's plants are S.crustata, very different rosettes.
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Could someone suggest a name for this one please? I have it labelled just Saxifraga so must have been unable to read the seed label when I planted it in the trough. Just the one stem, the first, but that makes the foliage very visible. Could it be S. crustata?
Looks a lot like Saxifraga cochlearis minor
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Lesley,
The epithet crustata refers, of course, to the calcareous incrustatation on the leaves, but this is no more marked than in several other species of the section.
Rosette-leaves usually 10-25 x 2-3mm long, linear,scarcely, if at all, expanded at the tip, curved downwards
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I should have looked a little further before rushing to the Forum because I've now found crustata, in a trough further along the line and it not only says crustata but also says "ex Thomas H" and I think it came to Thomas from either you yourself, Franz, or from the late Hans Hoeller. It certainly looks like the crustata pictures here so that's that solved. The one I posted yesterday has shorter leaves and could well be a form of what I've always known as cochlearis, tho' perhaps not quite so small as c. minor. It doesn't really matter. It and the other really like these crevices between rocks. So thankyou everyone for the replies.
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Yes Adrian is right it is not Crustata
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Had another look, I now lean towards S.cochlearis Major
The larger clones of cochlearis can be quite variable
especially in the rosette shape, but they always have
that expanded leaf tip giving that spoon look.
see the pics.
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I'm happy to go with that Adrian. I used to have both S.cochlearis and S. cochlearis 'Minor' and the present one looks larger than minor but smaller than the other so I'll label it S. cochlearis and leave it at that. What I have (from Thomas's seed) as crustata is below, two seedlings.
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Great photos. Does anybody have any more late fall trough pics?
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Saxifraga cochlearis minor seems to be one of those plants that changes form as it ages. Here as young plants they assume the classic form of a domed cushion plant, usually with height exceeding girth. I find that as they get older things seem to spread out. Certainly specimens very quickly lose their dome shape if they receive any shade. The first picture is a young plant at its first flowering, classic dome shape. The second is another from the same batch potted on the same day (15 weeks ago), receiving about 3 hours shade from midday, showing what happens if given some shade such as an adjacent rock.
The third is of a more mature plant, lots of flowers but lost its shape. After the earthquakes it spent too long in temporary and unsatisfactory accommodation. It is more a mat plant than a cushion plant now. Even in Normal times it seems our mild climate allows growth to extend so long into winter that they fail to get enough light and are encouraged to loosen up and stretch out a little. As with most of the encrusted saxifrages they are not plants needing midday shade from a nearby rock.
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Hi Senecio (sorry I don't know your name)
S.cochlearis only forms raised domes in pots, there are many theories
as to why this happens. One thing is for sure a pot is a very unnatural
environment for an alpine plant.
There used to be a famous plant of S.cochlearis at Ingwersens Nursery
near East Grinstead, sadly closed down now. This plant was growing on a
large Tufa boulder for 35 years, I believe (see picture)
S.cochlearis can take a lot of sun as long as it has some moisture at the roots
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Senecio in his Canterbury lair will no doubt be happy to see a NZ plant to the left of the Saxifraga. I remember visits to that amazing place and seeing THOUSANDS of Gentiana verna in flower! I hope the 50 I potted up yesterday will do as well. :)
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Hi,
I love Saxifrages very much, they are rewarding plants. I you give them the right treatment, they will love you too.
One method is to keep them in a trough and protect them against the sun when the sun is at its highest, otherwise the plants may be scorched during summertime.
I have a special place to keep Saxifrages : I keep them in the gutter. It's an old gutter from a greenhouse. In fact a big, long trough.
As you see in the picture, the plants are not protected by any tree or a building, they get sun all day long, but they never get scorched because the gutter is pointed towards the Northeast. I took the picture last week, most are in bud, but now it's freezing, minus 9 C.
Anyway, the Saxifrages love the life in the gutter. ;D
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forgot the picture
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Which shows that even the classiest among us can descend to the lowest places. ;D I hope you will take some pictures when they're in flower Leiomerus.
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Hi Lesley,
I certainly will when the plants recover after the 10 days of freezing they predict over here. :-\ ;)
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The large trough/gutter is awesome. Very cool idea
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Thanks Jlynx,
Nearby is a picture of the whole 'gutter', and my Border Collie 'Wiz' was present too.
As you will notice, the Saxifrages more down in the gutter are smaller, the reason is that they were planted much later than the one's planted higher. ;)
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Lovely gutter planting and the saxes just love it. Lovely collie too. ;D
Maybe you're planning a rock garden or scree or crevice planting of some kind on one side of the gutter? It would make a super border to such a garden. ;D ;D
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Thank you Lesley,
I personally think the gutter stands better alone. But I still have another empty gutter, which I could locate next to this one. Good idea. ;)
In fact I am making a sandstone wall at the moment, I will post some pictures when it's ready.
If you would like to see some other projects I made, just take a look at my website : www.rots-plant.be
Best regards