October 2014 in the Southern Hemisphere

[Otto Fauser]

and a few more from the meeting

[krisderaeymaeker]

Fermi , we missed you yesterday at the Rockgarden Meeting at Ferny Creek . Hope you are feeling better today .Amongst many well grown pants I specially liked Rex Shield's Lachenalia angelica . I brought my pan of Cypripedium formosanum and a nicely striped seedling of Trillium rivale . South African bulbs were in abundance , a bit too bright for me and as many are too invasive not many find a place in my garden .

Very nice Otto. That Trillium is stunning ! 

[Jupiter]

Hi Otto, I love the Lachenalia angelica you photographed, what a beautiful thing. I love this forum, I'm learning so much hanging around here with you lovely people.
Your Cypripedium formosanum is absolutely gorgeous. I hope I can grow it half as well as you do. I would love to move to a cooler climate some day, but we are so settled here with work and friends and family, I can't see it happening... I just have to be satisfied with the things which survive and grow.

[fermi de Sousa]

Otto,
thanks for showing pics from the meeting - I was hoping someone had taken pics for the newsletter!
That Lachenalia is beautiful - hardly a "soldier boy" is it! (The common name for Lachenalia aloides in Australia from the 50s and 60s, I think, when they would be grown in straight rows like troops lined up!)
Here's another Aussie - Eremophila glauca which makes a sizeable "ground cover" after a few years unpruned!
This genus is huge and the name means "desert loving" -very drought hardy, so another one for you, Jamus
Robert,
we get down to -7^oC so they can take that at least. The daisy can be grown as an annual or short lived perennial,
cheers
fermi

[Robert]

Fermi,

Thanks! The Eremophila glauca looks great - love the gray foliage. The flora of Australia is a little overwhelming - a huge area with a diverse flora. There is still much field work to be done just within 50 miles of the farm - many places where few people go, even to this day, and then there is all the development where the flora needs to be saved before it is gone!

I can hardly wait until spring here. Now is the time to be planting seed of our native annual and perennials - planting a few South African annuals too, and hopefully some of your Australian flora. I have a number of new areas I've been planting - so hoping for a good show this spring (ours).

With the 32c heat, still, the garden is looking good around here - Epilobiums, Mimulus, Cyclamen, as well as many annuals. The annuals are not too interesting - with the drought I was uncertain what I was going to be able to plant this season.

Cheers

[Jupiter]

Fermi I'm very familiar with Eremophila, thanks anyway! I agree they are nice plants but no room for them here. Where I work the grounds staff have done a beautiful job landscaping the whole campus with native shrubs, trees, ground covers, grasses etc. I really enjoy it, so no need to plant them at home   


My Arum dioscoridis is flowering! I love it! The kids are afraid of it because of the smell. 

[Jupiter]

Androsace sempervivoides, from Otto this year and already flowering!



Saxifraga arendsii




Hellebores 'Anna's Red'



Primula auricula, a freebie from a nursery I placed an order with and unspecified colour.



A tiny little division of Achillea umbellata (I think) and the dear little thing flowered already.

[Lesley Cox]

I hope your market day was enjoyable Robert. I haven't been up the road to mine recently, not for over a month as every weekend in October/November seems to have a major event of some kind that I'm taking part in. Next weekend is a Dwarf Iris Safari in Timaru (South Canterbury) hosted by the local group of NZIris Soc. There will be masses of those tinies in several gardens and I'll be like our little dog when he's chasing his tail, ultra excited.

Otto your Cypripedium is a beautiful thing. I lost mine a few years ago in my dry (at that time) climate. It's not easily replaceable I'm afraid. Love the stripey Trillium too - or do I? Not sure.

I grew Leschenaultia biloba, or tried to, some years ago when a particular nursery near New Plymouth still existed, and another too, brilliant orangey-red. But both were tender in lower New Zealand, even though we never had hard frosts, only to about -5C or thereabouts. I'd love to try them again but potted and under cover for the winter. Can't remember the name of the nursery (Huthnance? or something like that) but they are long gone as are so many of the little, specialist nurseries.

A small feather in my cap. I have been invited to sell plants at Larnach Castle, their big annual plant/garden day, on Nov 2nd. The castle's lady - I keep thinking of her as the Chataleine - says I'll be the only seller there apart from the castle itself. They have a fantastic collection of rare and special things always much in demand.

[Jupiter]

Congratulations leslie, if only there was more 'culture' in Adelaide. It's really dismal, it really is...

[Robert]

Yes, Leslie congratulations! From the photographs I saw about a month ago, your plants look excellent. I'm sure you will do very well.

It must be very nice having plant oriented events so often during the spring season. We have the Sacramento Perennial Plant Club sale once a year in late March. It is a good event, but the only one in the area.

The farmers' market was excellent. With warm weather (32c +) I still have much produce to sell and I even sold a few plants. I get tired at the end of the farming season - ready for a rest but I still have 5 weeks until market ends - It is year round but December and January are a waste for time for me - better to rest.

Anyway, good luck with everything!

[Lesley Cox]

Won't say Rest in Peace Robert, too early for that, just rest easy maybe and be ready for the Californian spring.

Jamus I thought Adelaide was one of the Australian cultural centres, along with Melbourne. Certainly the tourism advertising on our TV suggests that. Maybe lots of other stuff like food, wine, the landscape and history etc?

[fermi de Sousa]

Lesley,
He might mean "horti" culture as opposed to "Haughty" culchure
cheers
fermi

[Jupiter]

HAHA! Good one Fermi, especially funny because it's spot on. We have plenty of the later! I'm being a bit unfair, we have got SOME horticultural prowess lurking here, and the Adelaide botanic gardens which includes the city and Mount Lofty are the best botanic gardens I've seen in Australia, from the point of view of diversity of species represented, but it's slipping noticeably with funding cuts on top of funding cuts on top of funding cuts just wearing it down...I know two former staff of the botanic gardens now out on their ear and working one in his own nursery and the other in plant science. The botanic gardens are down to a mere skeleton of staff and rely on volunteer working bees to do basic weeding and maintenance. How disgustingly shameful, honestly...

The arts are one thing, but I have to say even the visual arts and the festival and the music, it's all becoming more commercial, more a two dimensional facade presented to the public for show without the depth, the knowledge and the links with history. To me it feels fake. What our government values in the arts is the tourism dollars, not the inherent value in the arts themselves.

[Tim Ingram]

It's great listening to these interchanges! Culture needs a little space to breathe in and we are very crowded down here in the south of England. I have just visited Kew and written about the Rock Garden on the AGS website, and it is as wonderful as I remember it as a student in London in the late 1970's, except much more expensive to visit. I've also just revisited the Czech Republic and gardens from 2013 in a talk to one of out local AGS Groups - an Alpine Cultural experience bar none (the visit to the Czech Republic, not my talk!). Curious how difficult it is to get this out into the wider horticultural world? It might be happening very slowly now with a few younger gardeners expressing the same knowledge and passion for the plants.

This is the recent display in the Alpine House at Kew, plus one particular plant on the rock garden, Ribes cereum, that I would really like to grow! (I've been reading about these Californian natives in a great book by M. Nevin Smith, dedicated to Wayne Roderick).

[Anthony Darby]

Many schools offer horticulture as a Science subject in Secondary schools in New Zealand. Here is an link to what is required for year 13 (final year of school): http://www.tekura.school.nz/subjects-and-courses/search-courses/course-info/course-title-and-description?ccode=AG3000