Peat-bog

[Yann]

The forecast announced storm and thunder for the afternoon, it was sunshine 
I decided with some friends to take a look at peat-bog residents:

Polygala serpyllifolia is quiet rare in north of France we were lucky to find it in bloom

[Yann]

We were there for the place's stars, the Drosera :
 

[Yann]

Drosera rotundifolia, we didn't find intermedia.

[Gabriela]

Great pictures with Drosera Yann. They are not easy to capture.
And yet another blue Polygala! 

[Rick R.]

Yes!  Very nice pics of a difficult subject.

Did you decide to keep the Olympus 60mm macro lens, and are these pics taken with that lens?

[Lesley Cox]

Yann would you recommend very moist conditions for all Polygalas? I grow PP. calcaea and chamaebuxus in two colour forms and the latter especially seems to like a lot of water in the summer? Yet I would have expect them to be quite drought resistant? Any thoughts please?

[Hoy]

Lesley, although I am not Yann I venture to answer

I have rarely seen any of the 3 native species of Polygala growing in bogs. They seem to prefer drier conditions. However, the flora says they can be found in bogs.
One species P. serpyllifolia typically grows in the drier parts of heather moors.

Polygala vulgaris and P. amarella also seems to grow where the water never is stagnant. But maybe they like wetter conditions in warmer climate




A bad picture but you can see P. serpyllifolia growing in gravel.




P. serpyllifolia,  moorland





P. vulgaris, tall grass.

[Yann]

serpyllifolia grows, in our area, always in the limestone bulge of the bog and on flat area full of silica.
They germinate during february when the soil is waterlogged, then later at end of June the bulge are very dry.
calcarea grows only on porous clay and scree slope.

Lesley, i always sow them in a sandy clay soil with plenty of water during winter, seeds need to be stratified. Then in april i stop the regular watering and let the substrat dry a lot between next watering.

[Yann]

Rick: yes i sold all my dslr and now only travel with this light lens.

you can't have the bokeh of a 105 mm attached on a full frame but my back will thanks me and i prefer the electronic viewfinder.
I also have the 12-50 mm, given 1.2Kg camera + 2 lenses.

[Lesley Cox]

Thank you both for your comments. I have the purple/yellow P. chamaebuxus in a raised bed of manufactured soil, mostly loam, compost and grit, where it grows and flowers well, so well in fact that I took a lot of stolons from it to propagate but it didn't like that and I lost most. Regular cuttings seem to be better. The yellow/white form also grows well but seems more sensitive to dry conditions. No seed from either.

The little blue P. calcarea flowered almost to death last summer and lost all its leaves after shedding some seed most of which I missed but I hope it may germinate in the spring in its gravel trough home, well watered (especially now, over 200mm rain in the last 2 weeks as we go into winter). What seed I was able to collect is sown on my usual potting/seed mix and covered with .5cm of grit. That was in March, nothing up yet.

[Mark Griffiths]

I've seen P.chamaebuxus growing on steep roadsides in woodland in Slovenia. I don't think it wants to be too wet but not dry either, where I saw it it was in semi shade.

P. calcaea from memory is a chalk hill species, so that would be sunny and drier conditions in summer.

[Tristan_He]

P. chamaebuxus is a funny one. It seems to like to get its roots down deep into cracks and I've come to the conclusion this is best in a crevice garden rather than the traditional peat bed.

I find P. calcarea pretty much impossible here, but will have to try to take cuttings or seed of the local heathland species.

[Darren]

I can't grow calcarea either, despite having the conditions it supposedly likes.