Spring is racing ahead now, the Lathyrus vernus is in flower and all around is growing quickly.
I have a pot full of seedlings from seed I got off it last year, as well as some purple, it's not as big a plant but is such a vivid colour. I will be able to place them in spaces (if I can find spaces!) around the edges of the bed. They make early colour, the foliage does die back a little later but is camouflaged by other things by then.
I rambled back through this thread today....I really needed to see Spring after we had (snow!) last night....thank you thank you W
and sweet peas!! wish the pix was scratch and sniff, lol
wallaby, do you discern any fragrance from your Lathyrus vernus. This is the first year mine has bloomed and I can't detect much of any odor, but is a very colorful plant. I hope to save some seed.
Donna
jerseyridgearts, these lathyrus are dwarf plants, about 12-15" tall. Sorry, no fragrance, but so pretty!
They do take a long time to flower well rutholive, last year was the first good year for mine, about 4 years from planting and I think 5 from seed. Yours looks more like the ones I've seen at garden centres, mine were bought as 'Rainbow mix'.
The purple was a weak plant and it was lucky to survive, but is a really vibrant colour. The flower is a deeper purple at the base than shows.
I'm very excited about these L.vernus! Both pink and purple are germinating (still sprouting from January sowing). And I'm particularly happy to know they are winter hardy well north of here (Thanks, Donna!).
If they survive in Donna's zone they should in yours Neal, they are listed on the Canada BC Alpine Garden club seed list.
Mine are doing very well, these are much better seed than I got originally, and of course there's many more of them!
This is the pink 2 days ago, sown 1st Feb.
The purple is smaller and slower, but the colour is worth it!
wallaby are your new little vernus from seed you saved or seed you bought or yours also Neal. If you bought seed where did you procure it. Thanks for info
Donna
Donna the seed is from my own plants, last year they made heaps, but you have to be quick to get them before they 'pop'. Neal has my seed too!
I have googled and found quite a variation of colours, but I was lucky to get two very nice ones, the only 2 out of 12 seeds and they didn't look good seed like mine did. They have been spread around a few people, I have just a few of the pink left, well it looks a few but is around 50 (if you want them!)
Would really love to have them, let me know how much postage is or any other expense.
Donna
Donna just dmail me your addy, it's on me! I was sure there would be someone else wanting those last seeds! Going out Thursday so will post then. They usually benefit from some cold to germinate.
This Orange Tip butterfly was on the grass yesterday (can't call it lawn). It had one of it's hind wings missing, hope it will be OK. I haven't seen another yet but I was expecting to see them, as last year two appeared when the Lathyrus vernus was open, they seemed to like the purple one. The wild version is purple. I didn't see them after that.
Spring arrived yesterday in force when the cherry tree burst into blossom, the flowers were nearly fullly opened in one day. At the same time the beds have burst into greenery.
The view is what I see from the kitchen window, on zoom. I went outside to take the pic but the same view just wasn't quite there, it must be to do with the height and distance (which is not much different!) but I was still surprised.
This is what a view from a window should achieve, but this was really by accident as I only viewed the layout from the upstairs window. Just an observation!
stunning! view is such an essential in the garden, isn't it?
Wow, that is beautiful.
View is an essential part of the garden, the tree is well located and was already here, a fortunate placing!
The flowers usually last about a week only, but what a sight!
Tulip Gavota is a lovely sight from the window now too, when the sun shines through the petals it glows. They last a long time, there is only 4 out of the ten which are doing well. I see the rest are still there but struggling, I suppose they are making new bulbs as they never did flower. The good ones have 2 or 3 stems each.
Wallaby-
Thanks for sharing your beautiful garden. Spring is late here in the Catskill Mountains of New York State. We have inches of snow still from a couple of days ago. Temps may push 50f today off the mountain. I'm hoping everything will burst into bloom soon as your garden did.
A month from now my garden may look something like this photo from May 21st, 2005. I've had to trim back the creeping phlox cause it was taking over the walk!
Elizabeth
Wonderful rockery elizaatfalls! I love the Phlox but they don't seem to do well for me, perhaps need more sun.
What is the deep purple/mahogany coloured flower in your planter? It's such a subtle yet powerful combination of plants you have!
I hope it soon warms for you, last year it was cold here until mid April and even then took some time to warm. After a few months it gets to hair pulling stage!
wallaby your cherry is just gorgeous. On my screen it is a lovely dark lavender color. Would love to walk down that green path. I guess it is spring here, even tho the frost fans are still running every morning. I had to go to Okanogan yesterday, 30 some miles, so went a little farther ot what used to be one of my fav. nurseries here in my garden nursery deprived area. I had a short list of 3 shrubs i wanted to try growing in large pots, they didn't have any of them. I ended up just buy 3 annuals. Filled my pickup tank with gas at $3.03 per gal, which was 6 0r 8 cents cheaper than here at home.
On the way back I stopped at Wal M., their plants looked pretty sad, between the frost and the lack of care they receive. I did not spend any money on plants there. But the drive down and back was pretty, so much greenery now that spring is springing.
The deep purple flower in the container is an unopened Osteospermum. I grow them as an annual here. That was my first year w/ them. They love my cool summers as do the Violas and Violets. These in the photo are from last summer. I also picked up a spoon Osteospermum- "Soprano Lilac Spoon" last fall. I wintered it inside- only hardy through zone 9. Funky petals! If you're curious to see them, check out Dave's plant files.
Elizabeth
This message was edited Apr 19, 2007 9:49 AM
rutholive, your screen must have a dark tint, the flowers are a lovely mid pink colour but lavender sounds nice! The weather we're having now is a lot warmer than it should be, the average for now is 12C but it's getting to 17C (63F) or more, the weekend was up to 25C in places, that's 77F!
We are also having no rain, in nearly 4 weeks nothing except for a smattering a couple of nights ago that hardly wet the ground. The weather forecasters said this area has had only 3% of the normal April showers, I doubt we have had that!
What were the 3 shrubs on your short list Donna? The garden centres around me get what comes in from Holland and other places, the things that look good and will sell. One does have a good supply of other plants but I rarely go now, I shop more on the internet! What a let down for you, but it's still nice to get out, it must have felt like a holiday after the winter!
Your petrol is Sooooo cheap, ours is up again to 90.9 pence per litre but it had gone to £1! That's £3.44 for an US gallon, the exchange rate is a little over $2 to £1 now, it works out at $6.89.
Imperial gallon = 4.54609 litres (277.419 in³)
US (liquid) gallon = 3.785411784 litres (231 in³)
US (dry) gallon = 4.4048841 litres (268.8 in³)
That can be confusing! It seems the US pint is 16oz, our pint is 20 oz, but they both have 8 pints to the gallon!
elizaatfalls, I love osteospermum, I did have two a few years ago with the spoon shaped petals, a white and purple, both with darker reverse. They spray them with dwarfing compound to keep them compact, when they grow again they get tall and straggly. I kept some in the greenhouse for a couple of years but gave up on them, I even got seed from them and grew more but they didn't behave. I do have two hardy ones in the garden, they do take a lot of frost.
This white one has a slatey blue reverse, it spreads and roots so each spring I cut it back and pull some up.
The other Osteospermum I bought as Prostrate Purple from a specialist grower of Sth African plants, but can't find it anywhere else. It is more compact and slowly spreads but usually gets chopped of at the edges by the mower, it's at the bottom 'V' of the rose bed.
I had to dig it up last year to remove twitch but it's growing well again, I put some pieces in other places in the bed to fill in gaps, it gets more moisture where it is and some shade at the bottom of the slope but I think it's quite tough.
Sigh . . . such beautiful, beautiful flowers, Wallaby & Elizaatfalls!!!!
It's still downright chilly here, especially at night, which is a bit unusual (unless my memories are playing tricks on me). I'm longing for those lovely mornings when I can meander about the yard in my robe and not need sweats, etc.! I do have an absolute ton of gorgeous tulips which at least raises the spirits a bit.
Tulips do seem to fill a gap after the snowdrops and daffodils, they are delightful even if only for a short time.
The weather has been behaving strangely everywhere, I feel lucky to be getting the best of it although today is cooler it's still pleasant. It's strange when at the same temperature earlier it could feel cold, but after having warmth it feels comfortable, all to do with sun/cloud, height of sun, winds and length of days I think. I am wearing short sleeved T-shirts, occasionally putting a fleece jacket on. Normally I would still be in winter clothing!
This is a tulip which has never flowered before, between yellows and reds which return consistently. They were already here, growing in grass which I made into a border in 1999, just the right length of time for a seed grown tulip to flower. It looks orange but is more a fine red veining over a yellow background. These are amongst the snowdrops near the Clematis trellis.
wallaby, my little list is still out in the pickup. But one I wanted to try in a pot was a small Sambucus, elderberry. I have 5 or 6 full grown-pruned back varieties, much too large to even think about moving. I wasn't even particular about which variety, just wanted a small one.
Here is one in bloom from last spring.MY folder of Shrubs & Trees is not where belongs. I do not understand how they get moved. And I deleted some pictures a couple of days ago and there they are back again. Very frustrating, especially when i don't have much time right now to try to find things.
Donna
WOW! Wallaby, your white Osteospermums are stunning w/ the purple leaf plants in the background. I'm going to try that combo myself this year. Thanks for the inspiration.
This is a photo of the first bloom from my Iris reticulata, taken 2 days ago. Spring is here. It always feels like Spring to me when the wild Coltsfoot show their first sunny blossoms. And they are blooming like gangbusters. Finally!
Elizabeth
That's late for I reticulata, mine flower in February! That's such a deep blue, does it have a name?
The purple leaved plants are Heuchera Silver Indiana and the Lobelia I grew from seed off Russian Princess, they seem to be growing stronger now and do make a nice contrast.
Our weather is still warmer than normal, I have buds on the roses and strawberries are making, but still no rain to speak, just a couple of fine drizzles lately, in over a month.
My dwarf Iris Dark Vader opened two days ago, it's 3rd flowering and it is spreading nicely.
Eliza - pretty Iris!!! And a stunning rockery!
Wallaby, love that Dark Vader - think I need to find one! And oh, dear, you mentioned a Heuchera I'm not familiar with . . . Heuchera Silver Indiana - I am such a lover of Heuchera - guess I need to find that, too! I think I've never seen one I didn't like!
wallyby1, I love looking at all your lovely garden photos. So many of the plants that do so well for you just don't do well here once the summers turn hot. You Primula are the prettiest of any I have seen. We had frost on the ground the last two mornings. My pansies seem to not mind it too much. 18 of the days in April have been below normal this year. On some the other days it got up into the 70-80's which is eay above normal.
susan
My tiny offspring of those primula are growing happily! Keeping my fingers crossed that Janet's garden has produced a large flowering primrose that can take the heat!
Neal - you mentioned primula so I have to post this picture. Can you believe they
are turning imperialistic here? Invading the grass
That's amazing Tammy! Did you have a dry summer last year?
The ground near the spring house never quite dries out. I'm off this week and planning to dig
out the grass and make the primula bed much larger. Why fight those beauties?
Nice to see this revived, lol, I can see when things bloomed last year!
lincolnitess, thanks, we had winter temps up to mid April too with only 6C (43F) many days! It has improved the last few day and we also had 3 days reaching 20C (68F), that's summer temps for us if we get it! We also had a frost but the primroses were OK.
I notice my Iris Dark Vader flowered on 24th April last year, it has only just started to grow this year!
Neal, I sowed a few (that's all there was) of those primrose seeds too and they recently started to germinate, they seem to all grow. Here's hoping they will do well for you, mine did better after the hot year of 06 and mild winter folowing that. This winter was mild too after a cold summer, but then winter followed in March, lol.
Tammy, I sowed some of your Primula seeds early and they didn't grow, the rest I sowed later not sure when but January or Feb and I have a tray full! Yours looks very happy, they do like to be kept moist so I will have to take care where I put mine.
Be sure to plant them early. I dug out a bunch for Neal a couple years ago and they
all died in the pots. Right after they bloomed.
I never noticed this was from 2007! Just saw the April date was a few days ago. LOL
Oh, Tammy, That's so funny! We have to try so hard to get them to grow, bloom and return the following year here....seems sort of unfair you just have them coming up in the grass like that! I would make that bed bigger, too!
Suzy
Suzy - I killed quite a few of those primulas at my last property.
When I had the offer in for this one, I literally dreamed of primroses
lining that stream. :-) They really need cool and moist. Just what
the little spring provides here.
I have the cool and moist, ok, but when I went to plant some Lobelia cardinalis in it, it was solid sticky clay. I was sort of surprised because surely some sand has washed down over the years, but nope...it was sort of inpenetrable for the roots. I suppose I could try to direct sow some seed and see what that would do...but all in all, I think the Floirda Primrose (P, Floridae) might be the only one that might have a chance of being happy. But I want pink or red, not yellow :))
Suzy
Do you need some seed?
Gee, I must have sounded very whiny LOL! Thank you, Tammy, very kind of you to offer! I also got an offer of some plants from somebody who read this and I snapped them up! Heck Yes! (so I won't need the seed)
I really didn't mean to sound so needy, it was just sort of a sigh. Like when the people in Florida have stuff blooming in Feb and we are sick to death of snow. It was just Primrose envy. :) However, I can imagine all your little hills and hollars and how great those would look in a huge river of bloom.
Suzy
Didn't sound needy at all! It sounded like you had primrose lust. Strikes the
best of us at times. LOL
I've found that mowing the leaves with grass and putting this on top of the really
clay soils helps build a nice friable layer on top.
I'm off this week to garden (actually weeding mostly). Amazing how tiring bending
over, pulling weeds and digging edges can be! It would be wonderful to do this all
the time - then I'd be in much better shape and the beds would be too. :-)
Tam
