Re: Got the Blues

A few more blues from my garden.  The Dracocephalum was labelled as tanguticum, but looks like ruyschiana so who knows.  The Delphinium is D. kamaonense, then the common Phyteuma schutzeri and Codonopsis clematidae.

A nice blue quartet, Todd, regardless of what the labels say.

Back from the Dolomites and over the jet lag.  This picture of Horminum pyrenaicum seemed to belong in this thread.  The only bad thing I've heard about it is that in the garden the ratio of flowers to leaves is poor.  I grew this some years ago and didn't find this to be true. Unfortunately, it was killed due to neglect, but it is a very nice plant with wonderful leaves.

I grow Horminum pyrenaicum in my garden but the flowers seem to be smaller than on your picture. Have never been to the Dolomites, think it is a place to go one day!

Not true blue but a stout and huge plant where the soil is moist and rich. Used as a wolf-poison in earlier times hence the name wolfsbane.
Aconitum septentrionale is very common in low alpine and at the treeline.

Snøsøte ("Snow sweet", Gentiana nivalis) is the bluest flower in Norway. Not uncommon in the alpine zone you do not notice the tiny plant if the flowers are closed. They open only in sunshine above 10C.

That nivalis is intense!  It is also native to Newfoundland but only in the most northern areas of Labrador, in areas too remote to ever be visited!

Not for the rock garden though but very blue....  and the red not-fertilized seeds of a peony.

This is a Hydrangea macrophylla-hybrid of unremembered  name.

I just received this message from Barbara Ward Grubb:
"Strong circumstantial evidence suggests that Lithodora diffusa 'Grace Ward'
was named after my mother. I have easily found that plant, but I am searching
for the variant named 'Baby Barbara.'  The same circumstantial evidence
leads me to suspect that it was named after me around 1954.
  I would love to find pictures, actual plants, or seeds of 'Baby Barbara,'
just so I know what it looks like.
  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks,
Barbara Ward Grubb"

If anyone can supply information or - especially! - a plant or seeds, please contact Barbara directly at:
[email protected]

Thanks for your help -
Joyce

A couple of current blues from my garden...Scabiosa columbaria and Gentiana cachemerica.

My goodness, I forgot to post my Cyananthus lobatus!

How could you ever forget the Cyananthus, Todd!

Seniors moment!  ;D

Welcome in the club!

Not sure if this classified as an alpine but y willow gentian, Gentiana asclepiadea is starting to open.

A couple of iris captured in Anne Spiegel's beautiful New York State garden.

Many images of Anne's special garden are to be found on this 'topic' of the SRGC. Please follow this link:-

http://www.srgc.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=4656.225

Wow, Ann!!! You don't have a garden, you have a park!!!  Truly amazing!

Unreal garden!

BTW, nice article Trond!

Thanks, Todd and Lori.

I am glad nobody has been to Anne's garden (excellent described by Cliff) first and mine afterwards. They are different worlds and mine is the wild jungle.

Both are excellent articles, Trond and Cliff!  I do get email copies of the many (maybe most?) of the NARGS Chapter newsletters, including Berkshire's, but I admit I hardly ever have time to read them all.  I think it is very advantageous that chapter editors exchange newsletters.  They get many ideas from each other that each builds on in their own way.  Our Minnesota editor offers to forward copies (of other Chapters' newsletters) that she receives to members who wish them. 

Let me say how truly wonderful it is to host any chapter speakers, from the NARGS speaker tour or otherwise.  Here, chapter members seem to be a bit hesitant to host, thinking they are not "worthy," or just not realizing the great opportunity they are missing.  I keep encouraging them, and I want to encourage any readers here, too.  The wealth of information and experience that guests hold simply pores out in torrents.  You need only open the gate.  I have very fond memories of each of my hostings, and feel a little greedy that I am among the five or so of us that seem to alternate getting the prize.  Let me also emphasize that having a nice garden is not a prerequisite!  With my first hosting, I only owned a dozen or so alpines at most! 

I would expect in some chapters, there is a healthy competition between members, for the honor and privilege of hosting.  Indeed, a contest worth winning!

Skulski wrote:

Join the club, Trond!   (Except any jungle, I trust, would be vastly more interesting than my yard, needless to say...  :()

... Which, nonetheless, brings up an interesting point... When one has the opportunity to visit more than one garden, it is worth putting some thought into the order of visits.  Satisfaction is maximized if each builds on the previous, with the finest saved for last!  Argue it if you wish, but the logic is irrefutable!  ;D

Some more blues... Gentiana paradoxa:

Where's the paradox?

I agree with you Lori, but if you are more than one person paying visits, then you can have more than one opinion! What one person  think is perfect, the other(s) not necessarily agree to.

Many thanks, Rick.

I fully support your message regarding hosting speakers. I have done so a few times myself.

It's the same when it comes to garden visits. A lot of people think that their gardens don't qualify but they forget that most people have quite ordinary gardens and would enjoy looking at similar ones. It shines through if you tend your garden with care and love although you don't have the rarest plants.

Hoy wrote:

Skulski wrote:

Join the club, Trond!   (Except any jungle, I trust, would be vastly more interesting than my yard, needless to say...  :()

... Which, nonetheless, brings up an interesting point... When one has the opportunity to visit more than one garden, it is worth putting some thought into the order of visits.  Satisfaction is maximized if each builds on the previous, with the finest saved for last!  Argue it if you wish, but the logic is irrefutable!  ;D

Some more blues... Gentiana paradoxa:

Where's the paradox?

I agree with you Lori, but if you are more than one person paying visits, then you can have more than one opinion! What one person  think is perfect, the other(s) not necessarily agree to.

Many thanks, Rick.

I fully support your message regarding hosting speakers. I have done so a few times myself.

It's the same when it comes to garden visits. A lot of people think that their gardens don't qualify but they forget that most people have quite ordinary gardens and would enjoy looking at similar ones. It shines through if you tend your garden with care and love although you don't have the rarest plants.

/Somewhere I once read a well-known garden writer saying that any loved and well-tended garden is beautiful.  I tend to agree because people's perceptions are incredibly varied.  What's beautiful to one is boring to another etc... I might personally make an exception for garden gnomes but I know there are people who absolutely love them.

Very pretty little Himalayan annual ...

GENTIANA SYRINGEA

Booker wrote:

Very pretty little Himalayan annual ...

GENTIANA SYRINGEA

Cliff, that's a gorgeous little item, do you grow it?  Does it make the seedex rounds?  What sort of conditions would it need; I'm assuming moist and peaty?

McDonough wrote:

Booker wrote:

Very pretty little Himalayan annual ...

GENTIANA SYRINGEA

Cliff, that's a gorgeous little item, do you grow it?  Does it make the seedex rounds?  What sort of conditions would it need; I'm assuming moist and peaty?

Hi Mark,
The image was taken today in my garden ... this little gem is growing in a trough/planter in a peaty/gritty compost where it was planted after being purchased from Aberconwy Nursery in early summer. (£3, quite expensive for a tiny annual).  I am very hopeful that it may seed itself in this trough, but it is only tiny at present and will probably produce a miniscule amount of seed. It is not being specifically watered any more than anything else in the garden but our summers are considerably damper and cooler than New England!

Booker wrote:

Hi Mark,
The image was taken today in my garden ... this little gem is growing in a trough/planter in a peaty/gritty compost where it was planted after being purchased from Aberconwy Nursery in early summer. (£3, quite expensive for a tiny annual).  I am very hopeful that it may seed itself in this trough, but it is only tiny at present and will probably produce a miniscule amount of seed. It is not being specifically watered any more than anything else in the garden but our summers are considerably damper and cooler than New England!

Cliff, I wish you success in growing that little annual Gentian, and getting it naturalized in your trough.  I'm sure you'd have a much better chance of success in the UK than here.  I like the idea of encouraging small or smallish annuals in a rock garden, to naturalize and help infill and weave together other plants.

One of the more unusual members of the genus Caryopteris is Caryopteris divaricata, from China, Japan, Korea, growing in mixed forests on mountain slopes and along roadsides; 700-2900 m.  While appearing shrub-like when viewed in flower in late summer (August - Sept/Oct), this species is actually a deciduous perennial, sprouting from ground level each spring and growing to about 5'-6'.  

In late summer it erupts into a cloud of beautiful blue butterfly-like flowers, and those fascinating downward curled stamens and style.  The loose, open panicles of individually large and separate flowers look very different than the clustered inflorescences of the more familiar shrubby Caryopteris species and cultivars; so much so that it fools many people when seeing this plant for the first time.

Beware of the foliage however, pleasant enough to look at, and a good backdrop to the blue flowers, but they exude a rather obnoxious acrid stink when the foliage is brushed up against or bruised.  Pulling unwanted seedlings is similarly fraught with the unpleasant scent issue. However, in the garden no ill scent can be detected unless handled, so don't let this "feature" put you off too much; it remains one of my favorite late summer / early autumn garden plants.  There is a lower growing white-variegated leaf form named 'Snow Fairy' frequently available in nurseries, but I don't grow that form.

http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=2&taxon_id=200019299

PS:  the flowers bear a striking resemblance to the annual Bluecurls, Trichostema dichotomum, see:
http://nargs.org/smf/index.php?topic=282.msg4076#msg4076

Wow, a Caryopteris I might actually, purposely grow!  If it flowers early enough for you to get seed, Mark, then I should be able to at least get flowers in my climate.

RickR wrote:

Wow, a Caryopteris I might actually, purposely grow!  If it flowers early enough for you to get seed, Mark, then I should be able to at least get flowers in my climate.

Rick, I have long since given up on the familiar Caryopteris species and cultivars, they just aren't reliably hardy here.  But Caryopteris divaricata is 100% hardy here, and makes lots of seed (sometimes too many seedlings appear), but I can certainly share seed. I think it would do just fine in your climate.

"Too many seedlings" don't scare me.  I have three species of impatiens, Campanula americanum and even Thalictrum thalictroides is becoming a weed.  I still love them all, and don't mind their rambunctiousness.  Yes please, send the Caryopteris seed along, if you remember when the time comes.  Thanks.

McDonough wrote:

One of the more unusual members of the genus Caryopteris is Caryopteris divaricata, from China, Japan, Korea, growing in mixed forests on mountain slopes and along roadsides; 700-2900 m.  While appearing shrub-like when viewed in flower in late summer (August - Sept/Oct), this species is actually a deciduous perennial, sprouting from ground level each spring and growing to about 5'-6'.  

I grow this species too. It is perfectly hardy here and behave as you tell but grows only to 3' here.

Not the bluest and an annual too!
Gentiana campestris is an annual selfsowing in our meadow at the cabin in the mountains. The species is very variable, the tiniest plants have but one flower and the tallest have hundreds. It starts flowering in July and continue till October.
Here visited by Bombus hypnorum.

Certainly on the purple side of blue this beautiful little Meconopsis delavayi is one of my absolute favourites.  It flowered back in june and has now disappeared back under the compost ... building itself up for an even better display next summer ... hopefully!  :D

Beautiful plant, Cliff.
In bloom in the garden now in a trough - Oxytropis oreophila.  As the flowers fade they go through a period when they turn almost turquoise.  In our continued drought they are doing this in fast forward.

Cliff, that Meconopsis has me drooling!

I have never thought of looking at the flowers from behind, Cliff, and certainly not imagined the beauty of the reverse of a flower.

Anne, Oxytropis oreophila is a plant to desire! When I was a student I tried to collect all the native Fabaceae in Norway (about 70-80) and have ever since had an eye for pea plants.

Thanks folks,
Here is an image from a previous season ... from the front ...

MECONOPSIS DELAVAYI

Hoy wrote:

I have never thought of looking at the flowers from behind, Cliff, and certainly not imagined the beauty of the reverse of a flower.

Anne, Oxytropis oreophila is a plant to desire! When I was a student I tried to collect all the native Fabaceae in Norway (about 70-80) and have ever since had an eye for pea plants.

/ Trond, I'd love to hear which of the peas you collected were the best candidates for the rock garden.  I grow as many peas as I can, and many of them are wonderful in the garden when some attention is paid to their requirements.

Spiegel wrote:

Trond, I'd love to hear which of the peas you collected were the best candidates for the rock garden.  I grow as many peas as I can, and many of them are wonderful in the garden when some attention is paid to their requirements.

I do not think it is many of the Norwegian pea plants which are usable as rock garden plants. Most of them are too big and/or too lax. Few, if any, are endemic her. I think many are circumpolar.
Sorry, I have no pictures of these plants.

The best , in my opinion, are
- Astragalus alpinus. Some forms are quite good.
- Astragalus norvegicus.
- Oxytropis lapponica. Tolerates dry conditions better than the previous.
- Oxytropis deflexa norvegica.
- Oxytropis campestris sordida. The last two are rare in Norway.
- Lotus corniculatus. Some forms are very floriferous and good rock plants.

For the moment I only grow Astragalus alpinus and Lotus corniculatus at our cabin.

Nice campanula David...the saxes in the tufa are even nicer!  Never heard of that Campanula species...I do have the Phyteuma counterpart.  Only campanula still open here are a few rotundifolia and carpatica.