Image of the day - 2012

That's a beautiful little vignette, Bundraba!  Welcome to the forum!

Trond, I like your woodland full of anemones better than your field of dandelions!  Not to say they aren't both showy.  ;)

Ah, the start of the mountain season in warmer climes, Cliff!  Thanks for posting that wonderful scene!

There are some wonderful plants there - the vignette of primula and cassiope is very fine; beautiful to see plants growing so naturally. The only place I have seen a complete field of dandelions is in Norway (at Geirangerfjord, mixed with the meadow geranium, and they were all in seed!). In the UK such meadows are few and far between.

Most dramatic in our garden at the moment is a plant of Yucca whipplei beginning to flower - a surprise since is only seven or eight years from planting. I am taking a photo every day at the same time to follow its progress and aim to put them together into a short video! How tall will it grow I wonder?

I Hate it when the garden is really starting to pop and my work schedule is so tight that i can hardly get a look. On the theme of yellows i took a few pictures before heading into the office this morning.
Cypripedium parviflorus, Not quite fully open flowers yet but very close. I have several different collections, they flower at slightly different times even when right next to each other. These tend to seed around alarmingly but i don't usually hinder them.

Dryas drummondii

Eriogonum caespitosa with the weed pasgue flower popping up in the middle of it.

Lepidium nanum, almost yellow flower

Another DYC hymenoxys lapidicola, very slow growing in my garden

Thats all the yellows i had time for before the sun came up this morning. will try to post up some of the non yellow a little later.

Trond- those darn composites don't like to co-operate with our tidy classification systems ;) The first native one looks very cute- if it stays small with leaves like that.. second one doesn't show the plant as well...
I would most love a white dandelion, such as the arctic species as found in Svalbard and elsewhere! I've failed twice with seed of albidens from Wim  :(

Jim- wonderful things happening in your garden as usual :)

Cliff- looks like you are on another lovely trip!

Merlin wrote:

Cypripedium parviflorus, Not quite fully open flowers yet but very close. I have several different collections, they flower at slightly different times even when right next to each other. These tend to seed around alarmingly but i don't usually hinder them.

Eriogonum caespitosa with the weed pasgue flower popping up in the middle of it.

Wow, I gotta say... you've really got some terrific weeds there, Jim!  ;D ;D  Love the photos!

It is nice to see such a variety of plants that people are able to grow, even in challenging conditions. I have a few more from this morning.
collomia debilis, this is the Idaho form i grow the superior Wyoming form but it flowers much later here. This is the perfect example of the much lamented (by Bob Nold, anyway) cottonwood season, if you have sticky plants.

Arisaema ringens

Clematis columbiana, this is the high elevation(non vineing) type, oddly my normal vine type specimens flower at exactly the same time. I know they are not distinct taxonomicly but they seem very different in a number of ways--except flowering time
 

Todd wrote:

Spectacular display Jim....my Cyp. parviflorum are only just breaking the surface.

Thanks for the kind comment. It's not long to wait for flowers once they cyps have broken dormancy. It's funny, I have some C. parv. that are now in flower and some that are still a ways off (though they are from different collections and probably different subspecies). Another thing that is interesting is how much later the C. reginea go. I was looking at a large clump of this species(C. reg.) that i have that is just about an inch into growth yet there are some seedlings of C. parv. that popped up right in the clump of reginea a few years ago that are now in flower--no chance of hybrids here methinks. I find that in either species the accidental seedlings tend to break dormancy a little earlier than their parents.  Epipactis gigantia is about the same in terms of growth as reginae. Dactyorizas are just now out of dormancy and all the other orchids come later.

Spiegel wrote:

Merlin wrote:

It is nice to see such a variety of plants that people are able to grow, even in challenging conditions. I have a few more from this morning.
collomia debilis, this is the Idaho form i grow the superior Wyoming form but it flowers much later here.
 

  Jim, I really like your Idaho form of Collomia debilis.  How does the Wyoming form differ?  Is either one long-lived?

You know, Anne, i am a bit surprised that Collomia debilis is not more commonly seen in peoples rock gardens--am i missing something? I find this relative of the Phlox(another of my favorites)is one of the really fine native rock garden plants that is easy to grow---cotton woods notwithstanding. the Idaho form is very long lived, i have some clumps that are many years old. the plant dies to the ground in the winter and looks quite dead but comes up every spring bigger and better. what i really like is that it has a very long blooming period that is almost all growing season long. The Idaho form has blue flowers and is quite compact when grown hard and will almost cover itself with blooms in the early season. The Wyoming form is even more compact and has a reddish tinge to the stems and smaller leaves, the blooms vary from red to pink and are exquisite. the wyoming form is slower growing and germination is more erratic than the other types. i also find that the wyoming form is more selective where it will thrive and i have not really figured out why here and not there yet. If there is a down side of this plant is that the blue form tends to seed around maybe a little to much but that is easy to fix, i tend to give them some leeway. The wyoming form seems to be in no danger of taking over my garden anytime soon as it is a bit shy in it's habits. This is a real two thumbs up plant species. I will try to remember to take some pictures of the wyoming form when it comes into flower.

Spiegel wrote:

I think your Idaho form of Collomia is really beautiful, Jim.  I've grown the form from the Wallowas and it only lasted a couple of years and died out.  It almost seemed to bloom itself to death one year.  Have you ever tried Collomia debilis v larsenii, a lovely high alpine that I've seen in Washiington near Mt. Rainier?   It grows on very steep, loose screes and makes lovely mounds.  The plants are soboliferous and the anchoring roots can be several feet above in the scree.  Where do you find the Idaho form in the wild?

The variety trifida (the Idaho form) is found at fairly high elevation in central Idaho(Sawtooth Mountains). It seems to prefer to grow in loose talus type conditions the same as you will find Penstemon montanus var idahoensis (if that is still a valid taxon). It seems that the plant is adapted to being sheered off by sliding talus slopes, thus the vigorous rootstalk.

Somehow I missed those amazing peas of Jim's earlier on. Now if I can halve our rainfall and increase our temperatures... I'll still try anyway! If I am correct Alan Furness in Northumberland grows Collomia very well even in his cooler and wetter climate, and they self-sow in a scree, but they must be even more wonderful in a climate that really suits them.

Yucca whipplei in our garden is growing apace - I will string a few images together when flowering really begins to get going, this is the picture taken yesterday.

Anne - they are great aren't they. In fact it is Polygala calcarea 'Lillet' which has been a star on the sand bed, self-sowing widely and flowering for ages.

Several different crosses of the beautiful dwarf Daphne x hendersonii (petraea x cneorum) are growing well on the sand bed. This is perhaps the most striking, 'Blackthorn Rose', named for Robin White's famous nursery. These need a deep scree that stays moist at depth, or do really well in a tufa garden.

Pictures from this afternoon. Its been a cool spring so far. Last spring was similar, the pollinators never showed up so there was almost no seedset for many of the early flowering plants.
Cypripedium parviflorum

Dryas octopetala

Penstemon rupicola

Great views, Mark and Jim- those Cyps are amazing!

Interesting about the pollinators-- I don't have super early garden flowers to compare, but the 'bugs' in general are out here it seems the second the snow melts- or rather, even when there is still snow over most of the land- various flies, moths, spiders etc are very active. I was just out looking at/photographing willow flowers the other day (among our very first things in flower, and among very few species at the beginning, but there are a lot of them) and around good sized plants- a couple/several metres tall by as wide- you could hear the buzzing of bees from a little distance away...

Here's a view looking up into one of those willows, and a closer crop of one of the buzzing pollinators...

Love that Androsace :)

I agree with Cohan, the Androsace is very nice. I have a great deal of respect for those that can accommodate plants of this genus. I have been something like the "Grim Reaper" for all of the Androsace species i have attempted(unless you lump Douglasia in this taxon, which i do not). I took a few pictures this afternoon of whats going in the garden.
Odds and ends blooming

A variety of plants in bloom

Salvia caespitosa

Very sweet Thalictrum! Looks a lot like our local sp, though much smaller..

Androsace pubescens

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