Image of the day - 2012

Todd, all i can say is WOW! Those plants are superb. I look forward to seeing more.

I took some quick close ups of some of the Astragalus that are in bloom today. I have to admit that most of these I have not keyed out yet so I don't know their names, all come from wild collected seeds that are chucked into the rock pile. I grow things somewhat spartan(no fertilizer and little to no water and "soil" that is almost devoid of organic matter) so it usually takes a year or two (or three) before these darn things begin to bloom before they go dormant for the summer. More or less variations on a theme.

Great stuff, Todd! Especially fond of the pink Hepatica! as well as pink Helleborus, and how can you not love Iris Kathleen H :)
Jim- fantastic peas- and I think variations on a theme are one of the delights of a garden!

Fabulous, Todd!  The long weekend remained cool here... warmish periods of sunshine and breezes, interspersed with little snow squalls, so there will be no such sights to be had for time!

Jim, terrific astragalus!  It's interesting to see the foliage variations too.

Keep the pictures coming, it's such a delight to see the variety of species as well as the display of excellent plantsmanship. Took a few in the garden today, such as they are.
Lewesia tweedyi at about peak bloom

Eryoginum caespitosum

Trifolium owyheensis

Trillium Chlorapetalum and Asarum hartweggii (both in bloom though you would not know the ginger was)

Astragaulus unknown

Clematis scottii

things are getting ready to take off blooming wise so i will not be able to keep up.

Great stuff, Jim, you have some really choice plants :)

A few more plants from today that i missed.
Daphne of some sort

Erythronium revolutum

Pulsatilla vulgaris, a pretty weed. As soon as the first seed heads are visible the Weedwhip treatment takes care of seedset and keeps the seedlings down to a level that can be managed with Roundup

Wow, nice, Jim!  You're in a pretty dry climate - do you have to give your erythroniums supplemental water, or do they cope without? 

And I'm sure there's lots of people who would envy you those awful weeds...  ;) ;D 

Nice colours on the Pulsas! I'm surprised they'd spread so much in your climate- or are they in an irrigated part of the garden? I have one little patch expanding, but they are just the basic coloured ones..

I keep the pulsatillas around because they give a mass of color early in the spring. The red form flowers about two weeks ahead of the purple ones. I made the mistake of letting them go to seed a few times and they come up all over my yard, you cant usually pull them up because they develop a deep tap root that resprouts when you break it off---so Roundup. The plants in the picture have not seen a drop of supplemental water for several years. The part of the garden that they are in is going to be completely remodeled this fall which will be the end of them i am afraid. 

Daphne x susannae cheriton

One of the weirdest plants in our garden - Othonna cheirifolia. This often gets battered by the winter but surprisingly was unperturbed by the cold snap we had after Christmas when temperatures dropped well below normal. It is a fascinating plant both for its leaves and flower buds, and I don't remember it flowering as freely as this before.

Todd wrote:

I too tried Othonnia with similar results.  :-[

What does do well here are our native dwarf willow...here is Salix calcicola about to burst in the crevice garden at work.  I collected this one three years ago.

The willow is very nice, the garden scene is absolutely deluxe!

Interesting to see an Othonna in an English garden- I'm used to seeing/thinking of the genus only in tender succulent and caudiciform collections-- if you think this one is weird, you should see some of the caudiciform species  ;D  does this one have any thick trunk?

Great willow, Todd- I'm still hoping to run into some native dwarf spp with seed- tough timing though..lol.. I've only seen them inside national parks where I wont take cuttings... if I were to find some in forestry lands it would be different... Never see them on seedlists, I guess for viabliity reasons....

No the othonna has very ordinary stems - I've seen other species listed in Silverhill's seed list but know nothing about them. Fascinating to hear that it was used by Gertrude Jekyll!

The salix is very attractive; we are generally too dry to succeed with these in the garden but they must be very fine in association with dwarf ericaceous species and dwarf birch - I remember Todd's lecture at Nottingham and those northern landscapes must have a very quiet beauty.

Some pictures from the bulb-fields in the Netherlands. This is the place, where the famous "Tulips from Amsterdam' comes from. I live here 'round the corner'.

A feast for the eyes, Gerrit!  Here, we can enjoy fields of yellow canola and mustard and blue flax but the colour palette in agricultural fields is limited.

Todd wrote:

Another record temperature today...finding it hard to keep up with the blooms.  Pulsatilla pratensis 'Nigricans' is just about open.

Scrumptious, Todd!  I kind of think I now have seedlings of this... after drooling over it so often here and at SRGC!... but will have to check my records.

Always fun to see those, Gerrit!

Lori- only canola (and dandelions and the d*** buttercup) for colourful fields around here!

Bundraba! wrote:

Little plants amidst the mosses and lichens in this special little place (aren't they all!) in the garden are: Primula 'Peter Klein', behind Peter are Gaultheria hispidula, Arcterica nana, and Cassiope selaginoides var. 'globularis'. At the left is the reasonably rampant Lonicera crassifolia and a nice little "weed" here; Dicentra cucullaria. Individually these tiny scenes don't do much for the garden but they are, none the less, precious.

This is a precious little scene- the mosses and lichens make it especially endearing :)

Todd, the Erythronium looks lovely- does it have glaucous leaves?

Trond- nice field- is it now? Ours are still many weeks away.. Would T officinale be native to your area, or is it impossible to tell in Europe?

Rick,  I'm sure there must be people out here who are trying for weed free lawns- poor them, must be stressful! My yard has lots of dandelions and durned clover, but also tons of wildflowers.
The primary model out here though is agricultural, and weeds are mainly defined as things that cattle can't or wont eat or things that interfere with crops.... I doubt dandelions are much on the radar as they are excellent forage and too short to hamper field crops much- though I'm sure they are targeted by those who use broad spectrum herbicides on fields. Most uncultivated pastures are mostly left alone here, and are usually a mix of many native plants with escaped forage legumes, dandelions and agricultural tag-alongs etc. Spraying is most likely (though still not the norm) when there are major infestations of canada thistle or that d***** european buttercup (this is the worst to me, since it is sooo aggressive and takes over wetlands which were mostly safe from the escaped forage crops)..

I also have T pseudoroseum seedlings- didn't flower last year, but I have some in the ground now... T (rubidum) faeroense looks fine after a second winter too... (still owe Lori seeds  :-[