Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
General Subjects => Flowers and Foliage Now => Topic started by: Paul T on April 01, 2012, 11:27:16 PM
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Howdy All,
Thought I'd start us a place for the southern hemisphere to post some photos for the month. I promise I will get back to photo posting soon..... hopefully later today. 8)
At the moment there are abunch of different Crocus coming into flower.... tournefortii, nudiflorus, longiflorus, laevigatus (very early), banaticus, gilanicus and more. There's still some Colchicum about, the first of the Galanthus reginae olgae are already open (also very early this year), Salvias, Dahlias, Roses, Aster nova-belgii of assorted colours, some Clematis species, first of the tazetta daffs, Abutilon and more. Not a solid mass of colour, but lots of bits and pieces here and there.
Very confused weather has made very confused plants. Some pics of the better sights will follow soon, providing my tooth extraction in an hour goes OK.... otherwise it might be tomorrow rather than this afternoon. ;D
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Good luck at the Dentist! :-*
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Maggi,
Thank you, but I hope I don't need good luck. :o Top right, furthest back, biggest molar I think? Growing at 45o angle and with 3 large roots. If it doesn't come out easily, this afternoon is NOT going to be good. ::) Even if it does come out easily it still probably isn't going to be terribly comfortable. ;D
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puts me in mind of my dentist's comments when I was getting a root canal treatment:
... knowing I was somewhat anxious, he asked if I was okay.
..'not too bad' I replied, 'but I don't suppose this will be the most fun I've had with my clothes on'.
..'well', says he, with a glance at the nurse, 'we can all take our clothes off... but it still won't be fun'
Process was held up for five minutes till the nurse regained her composure.... ;D
We all survived in the end.
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;D ;D I think that would have broken the ice nicely! ;)
And here are a couple of quick pics, taken after work so the light wasn't brilliant.
Moraea polystachya, and Dahlia coccineus with bee friend trying to get in a last collection before dark.
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Maggi, you made me laugh loudly on Monday morning again!
I can see the picture in front of me. Glad I don't have to go to the dentist soon, because I would be grinning all the time.
Lina.
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.... and very nice too Paul.
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Dentist survived! Not actually hurting that badly thankfully, although I think it is usually worse the second day. ::) The tooth removal was actually quite easy, with none of the complications that were possible due to the position and condition of the tooth. The actual removal didn't even take 5 minutes. The injection of the anaesthetic hurt a lot more than the tooth removal, although that grating feeling as the roots pull out is atrocious. :o
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Too much information Paul. ???
This little Heuchera hallii is very cute, just 8cms high in flower. Bad photo though.
Calochortus barbatus has a weak stem and flops all about. But the flower's nice.
I should have taken Crocus vallicola a couple of days ago when there were 6 flowers all at once. I had some seed in the early summer, so hopefully more this time around.
The seedhead of Arisaema flavum ssp. abbreviatum started to fall to bits when I moved it so I'll need to collect the segments quickly.
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Some autumn reds now but the sun is in such a position that it has made the fiery colours look pink. The Polygonum and the Cornus are rich crimson rather than the pinky shade.
Zantedeschia 'Majestic Red'
Polygonum affine 'Donald Lowndes,' one of my favourite autumn plants.
Two for Cohan in Canada, Cornus sericea. I can't wait to get some of these planted in my new long border.
And for Brian, Eucomis 'Tiny Pink Rubies,' now fully out. As you know, I sniff everything new to me and these smell of rubber gumboots!
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Lesley,
Great pics. That Eucomis is really something! The colour on the Cornus sericea looks brilliant!!!
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And for Brian, Eucomis 'Tiny Pink Rubies,' now fully out. As you know, I sniff everything new to me and these smell of rubber gumboots!
Lovely Lesley, much better when not etiolated ;) We were taking Herbarium Specimens from the National Collection of Muscari on Thursday last week and one of the things to note was the scent, I'm afraid all I could discern from one specimen was the scent of Pledge furniture polish!
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Some pics taken this week,
a little colchicum which came from a Seedex as C. pusillum which I'm told it isn't - it's about the height of C. corsicum with narrow petals like C.lingulatum. In the pic it's coming up through a mat of Teucrium subspinosum, so it is quite small.
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Already posted elsewhere but worth repeating, I think, Narcissus serotinus, a kind gift from Otto a few years ago and happy potted (the daff, not Otto! ;D)!
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Another view of the clump of Narcissus viridiflorus in the garden
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And another look at the wonderful Brunsvigia gregaria
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cheers
fermi
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I take it getting bulbs into Oz doesn't involve them being sautéd first!? ::)
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Leslie, what a lovely little Heuchera - does it usually flower this late? And Fermi, great to see daffodils in both hemispheres!
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Hello Anne. I don't know what is "normal" for the Heuchera. I grew it from local seed a couple of years ago and this is the first flowering. I have 4 little plants, just this one to bloom this time around. I'll plant them in a little patch and see what they do next year. It is rather cute.
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I have a confession to make and it says more than anything that there's none so blind as she who will not see - to paraphrase a little.
I emailed the Christchurch nursery where I bought the little Eucomis, to find out A) if it was an NZ raised variety and B) if it had patent rights so that I wouldn't be able to propagate it for sale. I also mentioned that it WAS for sale at a south Otago nursery as 'Tiny Piny Ruby' a downright stupid name in my opinion. "Piny?" What the heck?
Anyway my supplier emailed back to say they had never had a plant called 'Tiny Pink Rubies' but had supplied 'Tiny Piny Ruby.' I've looked back through their Online lists, from whence I purchased it, and can't find any reference at all! So I have to accept that the stupid name is correct and I am wrong but I can't imagine where I got MY name, except from their list. Did I just see what I THOUGHT would be the right name and not what was actually written there?
I'm always very careful with names and hate having wrong spelling or the wrong word but in this case, I'm going to stick with what I thought was right in the first place or maybe mumble a bit if asked the name.
One good thing, it is not NZ raised and has no PVR designation so my leaf cuttings will hopefully become nursery plants. One in a pot, flowering, should look very attractive.
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Perhaps you could just label it Eucomis TPR ;)
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Anthony, Fermi and perhaps Marcus if he's around will be able to give you a better answer for Australian bulb imports but I don't think they're a lot easier than for here. I know that when I sent stuff to Marcus he had to have them quarantined in a govt. facility. He didn't need a phyto cert on the grounds that as they were going into quarantine anyway, anything nasty would be found during that process. And of course the Aussies too have a sort of version of our Bio Index, called ICON which stands for I forget what.
We don't have the quarantine for dormant bulbs from Australia but so many inspections are involved, on the nursery they come from, the bulbs themselves (thrice: when in growth, then prior to export then when they get here) and so on. If you really want a way to send yourself over the edge into total blethering insanity, import/export of plant material into/out of NZ is a good way to achieve it.
When I go to the PO with a small padded envelope of seeds for someone in the UK or EU, I have yet another episode of the "Oh but you can't send seeds to another country" argument. Yet again I have to explain that England or Holland or wherever permits seeds to enter, only NZ and Australia and USA have some rules about it.
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Perhaps you could just label it Eucomis TPR ;)
That's probably a good idea Brian. ;D
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Hello Anne. I don't know what is "normal" for the Heuchera. I grew it from local seed a couple of years ago and this is the first flowering. I have 4 little plants, just this one to bloom this time around. I'll plant them in a little patch and see what they do next year. It is rather cute.
Heuchera hallii is normally an early summer bloomer (June) for me.
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Perhaps mine has just at last rached the right size to flower, somewhat out of season. Looking at it Lori, would you say it is correctly named?
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It certainly looks like what I'm growing as Heuchera hallii (below) (though I'm sure no expert!)
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Edit: I should mention... it blooms in June for me in a trough well north of its native North American range, where I expect it probably blooms a lot earlier.
http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=250065969
http://www.efloras.org/object_page.aspx?object_id=110810&flora_id=1
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ICON = Import Conditions
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Thanks Rob.''That looks really nice Lori. I'll try it in a cool trough maybe, one anyway.
Rob there is at last some seed on L. wardii. Do you still want it?
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Something that has been flowering for the last few months for me..... Commelina coelestris. The most beautiful true blue flowers. So hard to come by blues as pure as this. 8)
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Paul, what a glorious true blue your Commelina , no Crocus can match that colour . here are a few that give me much joy at the moment , I wish some of the rarer species would be as easy to grow and multiply. Crocus speciosus 'Crimean Giant' is the largest flower of all Crocuses in my garden , I grew it from seed collected in the 1970s in the Crimea .
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and a few pics of Crocus caspius - another easy one. - raised from seed (collector's No. P.F. 5035) that Paul Furse sent me in the 1960's . flowers from white to pinkish-mauve , and today I noticed 2 flowers on a fasciated stem .
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Lovely pics, Otto.
I have some caspius from you in flower at the moment, and one of the banaticus as well. Some things are flowering well this year, some skipping entirely due to the absence of summer. And yesterday I discovered a bud on one of the Narcissus bulbocodiums types..... :o :o Way too early.
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Nerines have been doing well this year where we are though I've heard from a grower in the Dandenongs that they've had a miserable flowering due to the cool summer.
This coral-coloured nerine is one I got from Ruth Tindale more than twenty years ago - it's called "Ariel"
cheers
fermi
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Perhaps you could just label it Eucomis TPR ;)
Then everybody will ask you what TPR stands for. I was given some very nice pleiones labelled PPE. When I asked what it meant, the breeder blushed and mumbled something. He later renamed them Sikkim, no more questions. - By the way, if you read this, Steve, they are very nice indeed. ;D ;D ;D
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Fermi,
Ariel looks like an interesting colour.
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More nerines
A white hybrid (does have pink buds)
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First flowering of a seedling of a "dark pink seedling" x ? [mixed pollen! - but possibly N. rosea because of the flower shape]
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A pale pink hybrid
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"Aristocrat"
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cheers
fermi
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"Aristocrat" is well-named. Very classy.
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Fermi,
I like the white hybrid. Lovely clean colour.
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Just two pics today, the first a pure white seedling among the 10 sdlgs from David Nicholson's seed of Lewisia tweedyi. Two are white.
Then a little hoop petticoat just out today, very early for a bright yellow. I have 'Nylon' out and a few other pale forms. This is a seedling, first flower in a roughish patch and I'm sure one parent is 'Citrinus' because of the flattish leaves and the green stripes on the tepals (the outside bits). The stem is just 5cms high. It's very pretty and I'll isolate it, because of it's early bloom. Lovely perfume too. The first 'Atlas Gold' is also out today, much earlier than usual.
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That white tweedyi looks great Lesley, all of mine so far are true to the mother plant. It just shows the benefit of growing from seed.
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It's a really sparkling white David and I'm delighted with it and its mate.
This April, mid autumn, has been a wonderful time with warm, sunny and windless days for weeks now. We need rain but such days as these are a real treat after the cool, damp summer we endured. Today is another beauty with an expected high here of 20C in Dunedin but we are usually a degree or two warmer. Even Anthony in Auckland isn't having better weather.
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Lesley,
Expected high of 13oC here today, so I'm guessing you'll have a bit of a wintry chill sometime in the next week or so. Would love a nice sunny day at the moment, although some decent rain would be lovely here as well. Dribs and drabs of little useless rain that doesn't do anything more than make it miserable. Although 2km from here they had a major downpour the other day. ::)
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We had 15C a day or so ago and heck it was cold (for us) and only 20C today with a bit of drizzle and cold breezes. Nothing much in flower here apart from all the cyclamen in the nursery which do look good whether in flower or just for the leaves.
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Well the cold has certianly come, but from the south not the north-west. Snow on the hills and a few flakes here yesterday too with a bitter southerly wind. It's about 5C outside at present though the sun is shining after 10mm of rain Sunday night and Monday. S'pose it had to happen. :'( Anyway, it's May now.