Image of the day - 2012

I too do grow Campanula takesimana (I believe it was from Thompson & Morgan seed with that name). However, it is not as aggressive here. I have other Campanulas which is much worse!

Still summer in your World, Cliff?

Quote : Cliff, like the way you have whited out the corners of your flower photos - makes the flowers look even more precious.  Fran

Thanks Fran ... it works with some images but, unfortunately, ruins others. LOL.

Thanks Trond and Cohan for your very kind comments.

Tim wrote:

Crocus are such ephemeral but beautiful plants and I am still surprised to see them in the autumn despite having grown this one, C. speciosus, for many years. These are growing in a bed strongly devoted to bulbs and because it changes so much during the year I have started taking daily pictures with the idea of putting them together as a video. Does anyone have any experience of doing something similar? I think this will probably be a strong learning experience.

I can't advice you, Tim, but here are two similar videos (maybe I have shown one before) but not as nice as your bed will be!

And here is the receipt how to do it (in Norwegian)!

http://nrkbeta.no/2010/01/05/hele-2009-paa-120-sekunder/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOF42_OcZ3Q&hd=1

These vidos are superb, Trond. The site must be very secure and preferably on one's own land - a camera wouldn't last twelve hours in the woods near us, let alone twelve months - and the individual images seem to be taken when the weather conditions are clement i.e. no 'active' precipitation.

An image from 2004 now - Globularias & Violas, Wengen.

Tim wrote:

Thanks Trond! Those are tremendous - I particularly like the children coming through the snow at the end of the first one. If I could set a camera up in our local woods and follow the anemones and bluebells flowering in spring that would be something else; those have given me more food for thought. Will see if I can discover more advice in English before I delve into Norwegian!

You are welcome! I would love to see your local bluebell wood through a year - or at least a spring ;)

Booker wrote:

These vidos are superb, Trond. The site must be very secure and preferably on one's own land - a camera wouldn't last twelve hours in the woods near us, let alone twelve months - and the individual images seem to be taken when the weather conditions are clement i.e. no 'active' precipitation.

An image from 2004 now - Globularias & Violas, Wengen.

Cliff, I think he places his camera on his balcony ;D

More nice summer reminder!

I love when in nature plants intermingle; the view of the dwarf pink-flowered salix (any idea about what species it is?) and the leaves of Dryas mixed in, give inspiration to try emulating the combination in the garden.

As usual, the vastness of mountain scenes in your area leave me breathless, it would be superb to have such access to remarkable mountain terrain.

Lori wrote:

I enjoyed the time lapse videos, Trond.  Sometimes, I think time really does flash by like that... or is it just me?  :)

No, it is not just you, Lori :-\  The time is accelerating!

Nice scenery - hope I sometime get the time to view it in person!

McDonough wrote:

I've grown many forms of C. punctata, which took me a decade to eradicate (mostly), but I fear I have lost the battle with C. "takesimana"; the only way to deal with it invading my lawn and garden and surrounding woods, will be to move to a new location.

Interesting that a genus producing some of the most obstinately demure little plants is also capable of producing these "superplants". We have C. rapunculoides (?) here for decades, if not centuries, but I haven't yet seen the little beauty you describe. Probably best left that way! C. rapunculoides came to my garden on some daylily roots more than a dozen years ago and I have kept it in check -until, perhaps now. it does not prefer acid sand but since I have been modifying areas of the garden (and the garden has gotten bigger LOL!) I fear it is getting loose! I still think that someday I will just be able to go in and redo the entire area where it is beginning to spread and, in so doing, remove it. Errr... Is this folly?

Eritrichium nanum - 'King of the Alps' - Dolomites, Italy.

We never used to have winter fog that lasted more than a day (and even that was rare), until about ten years ago.  Now we get these magical, multiple winter day stretches every year. 

The best part is near the end: the hoar frost has built up so much that the weight the fragile crystals makes them break off and fall, and it is so silent out that your can hear the tinkling symphony of musical notes that they produce.

Cohan, I recognize that kind of weather! It's not uncommon around Oslo where I grew up. Here at the west coast fog is more common in spring when the land is warmed by the sun while the sea still is cold, and sometimes in the autumn when the sea and lakes are warm (relatively) and the temperature decrease on cloudless nights. However hoar frost of that kind is rare. Another kind of weather which is common at this season is very fine rain and lowlying clouds as it is today - the temperature is 10C.

Cliff, I do recognize the kind of weather in your picture as well - but it is rare - at least here ;)

High above Chamonix, France ... stand of Gentiana purpurea (few in flower).

Hi Cohan,
Gentiana purpurea is, as you suggest, the large foliage ... see attached image.

Cliff, a perfect setting! It is a familiar plant but the surroundings are not ;)

The last months have been very rainy and it is almost impossible to do anything serious in the garden as the soil is completely soaked.
Yesterday the sky cleared a little for a while and the sun shone through and created a double rainbow which lasted a couple of minutes. I barely had time to take some pictures before the motif disappeared.

cohan wrote:

Always nice to see the sun! My it looks mild there- like summer here almost  ;D

Mild, yes; but summer, NO!!
It's mild and wet. 8-10C and rain.

cohan wrote:

10C sounds almost like summer to me  ;D

Well, maybe the temperature is more like summer (in fact it isn't much colder than in summer) but the torrental rains make me feel like it is the Great Deluge! I wouldn't be surprised to see Noah's Ark any day now. What save us is the steep landscape that effectively drains the water.

We did see the sun for a couple of minutes today! But more rain tomorrow . . .  Better rain than snow though at this time of the year although a snowcovered world is calming (when it doesn't storm)  :D

Arisaema sikokianum "fruit cone" has taken forever to ripen, but it's ready now, giving away this impressive harvest to a friend this week, so that she can re-establish the plant in her garden.  The 2nd head behind still needs more ripening.

Yes, as impressive as I imagined they would be when you first showed them, Mark. :o

Once the stem creases naturally, I wonder how much or even if there is any advantage to leaving the berries connected to the ground anymore.  If the stem cells are senescing what kind of conduction through the crease could there still be in an herbaceous stem?  I wonder, would the same ripening occur if the stem was detached at the crease (given other conditions being the same)?

Does anyone have any insight on this?  I'm just thinking out loud, should there ever be a need for after ripening inside, for instance, or in case of marauding animals (including the two legged type).

Rick, you're correct, after a couple weeks nightly freezing, the stems are mush at this point, I'm sure of no real conduction of fluids inside the stem to the fruit, yet while a mushy stem, it is also tough and stringy, and will not fall off with being cut.  A couple years back I finally had seed set on A. heterophyllum after not setting seed for almost 10 years. The seed ripened so late; I went out mid-winter and shoveled snow and chopped the red seed head out of the ice, cleaned seed inside and sowed it, put flat on a windowsill and they came up. 

I have worried about leaving the seed out there in direct view of the street and passersby, one never knows.

Mark,

I have harvested the seed clusters from Arisaema sikokianum and A. consanguineum when they were still green due to predictions of a hard freeze followed by a winter storm.  I just laid them on my workbench in the garage and within a few weeks the 'berries' were bright red.  I cleaned the seed and sowed them with a very high percentage of germination. I have a cluster of A. consanguineum 'Perfect Wave' ripening that way right now.

Ed Glover
Mount Horeb, WI

We got our first killing fost two nights ago when it dropped to -4 C...not bad considering it's past the middle of November!  Suppose to be sunny for the next 6 days...VERY unusual for us considering November is one of our wettest months.

Just got back from 10 days in Brazil...no frost there I can say!  Hot and steamy was the norm.

Here is a pic of Iris sari...a dream iris I could never grow in my area.  This was photographed at the International Alpine Conference in Nottingham 2011.

Glover wrote:

Mark,

I have harvested the seed clusters from Arisaema sikokianum and A. consanguineum when they were still green due to predictions of a hard freeze followed by a winter storm.  I just laid them on my workbench in the garage and within a few weeks the 'berries' were bright red.  I cleaned the seed and sowed them with a very high percentage of germination. I have a cluster of A. consanguineum 'Perfect Wave' ripening that way right now.

Ed Glover
Mount Horeb, WI

Thanks Ed, that's good to know about cutting the seed structures off in the green. I suspected they might ripen on their own regardless, as the stems go mushy after frost, but the fruits still ripen regardless.  I have always had lots of self-sown Arisaema seedlings from just letting the fruits develop and drop on their own, but now looking to harvest some of the more choice species to bulk up my supply.  I'll keep this in mind.  I'm envious of your germination on A. consanguineum 'Perfect Wave'; thus far I've not had any form of this species last more than 2 years.

Todd, love Iris sari, had it bloom for a couple years in the garden, from a piece John Lonsdale shared with me some years ago.  Then after a few more years of dwindling and no flowers, it died out.

Brazil was a birding trip...botanizing was incidental.  Saw five species of orchids blooming and an Alstroemeria of some sort.

More likely a Bomarea, Todd! I found similar ones in Ecuador.

I tought that too, but this one was not vining...simply a stem to 40 cm with whorls of leaves....I was told by a local Brazilian it was indeed an Alstroemeria.

Todd wrote:

I tought that too, but this one was not vining...simply a stem to 40 cm with whorls of leaves....I was told by a local Brazilian it was indeed an Alstroemeria.

OK, didn't know they grow that far east.