We've seen the tiniest veronica, now here's the smallest gentian, dwarfed by its own flower. I think it is Gentiana x 'Frei'.
Mid-May alpines (and small plants)
Here's a pinkish one that's blooming for the first time now - love the color :-)
The spotting inside that gentian really add to the allure. Very nice.
FYI Veronica alpine: unlike June's gentian, the plant itself does get quite a bit larger, althoug leaf and flower size is about the same (I think). This is just the first bloom on a seedling.
And a excellent quality pink color on that Pulsatilla.
Erysimum x 'Turkish Delight', supposedly a biennial or short-lived perennial, in its third year now.
Globularia trichosantha. It seeds itself around a bit, but not too much. The red-leaved plant in the crevice behind it is Sempervivum x 'Compte de Congai'.
The pink pulsatilla is fantastic!
Thanks gram - I get plenty of seed from the pulsatillas and you're more than welcome to some :-)
Tammy - great photos - your rock garden looks good and that primula bed is just wonderful :-)
June - very cute gentian :-) And the others you added while I was typing ;-) lol
Thanks to both Leftwood and Galanthophile as well :-) It is a relly pretty color - can't wait for it to grow big and give me a few more flowers - only got one this year :-)
This message was edited May 20, 2007 10:00 PM
June - oh my that's a cute gentian!!!
Rann - the pulsatilla is wonderful.
Oh isn't it a grand time of year!
Tam
Tam, absolutely agree....loving spring!
June, the gentian is sweet. can barely hold it's head up.
Rann, the color on that pulsatilla is gorgeous. I'm loving them more & more.
re: gentians everyone...I attempted to wintersow several... G. andrewsii, G. flavida, G. crinita. so far I've had no germination. this is seed I purchased at seedman.com. do gentians usually take a long time to germinate (in other words, should I not give up on them?). I have more seed. should I try again and do something special? advice?
Have you given them a cold treatment first? I think most want that. Take a look at the germination guide (upper right) here:
http://onrockgarden.com/
that's the whole principle of wintersowing. I put the sown seeds outside in January. so they did have a cold treatment. Thanks for the excellent link, though. it has about the same directions I had, except it says you can repeat the cold treatment if you don't get any germination. so I will give it some time, and if then I get nothing, I will just cycle it thru the fridge again.
Jan - I've had no luck with gentiana myself. Do try cycling through the refridgerator again.
I've gotten germination on pots I kept for over a year (not gentiana but anemone & cyclamen e.g.)
and its just a wonderful surprise when they finally do germinate.
Tam
Thanks everyone :-)
Gram - I've managed to get gentian seed to germinate once or twice out of many, many tries ...... it took a while so I'd keep the pots until next spring. I think I read somewhere that it needs dark to germinate - can't remember if the ones I had success with were in the dark though.
Tammy, cyclamen is another that hasn't germinated for me yet. I'll hang onto it.
thanks all for the advice. I had to try some things this year.
Tammy, I think your Clematis Integrifolia will root in water.
Corinne
This is Ranunculus alpestris - a type of buttercup :-)
My newly bought Primula marginata
A red and white cultivar of Primula auricula
Rann, I'm so envious of the R. glacialis...that's pretty much impossible to grow in North America....ours summers are just too warm for it. Yours is obviously very happy! My marginata are in full bloom too. I grew a bunch from seed last year and the first ones bloomed this spring. Some nice selections among the batch which surprisingly showed considerable variation. I think I am almost caught up to you Rann...we are still have unseasonably cold weather...only hit 3 C yesterday!...it was 23 C the day before! Our spring is yo-yoing like crazy, but mostly, it has been cold and dry.
Corinne - thanks for the tip.
Jan - cyclamen like to germinate in the dark. I put my pots
in unused drawers in the house, in ziplock bags. I have to
remember to check on them but they do germinate pretty
reliably for me this way.
Rann - lovely primulas!
Todd - I lost a few young trees this spring. I am attributing it to
the unseasonably warm Dec, very cold winter and then ridiculous
yo-yo temperatures this spring. I guess it means I get to pick
out new ones.
Tam
Thanks Todd - the buttercup above is R. alpestris not R. glacialis. R. glacialis grows wild here up in the interior highlands but is also very hard to cultivate here - it likes to be kept very, very cool! lol
The past week has been very cold here - 40's temps - mostly around 45°F - really wish it would warm up already! I'm expecting you to get far ahead of me in the coming weeks when you finally get your normal temps and I'll still be stuck in the 50's ..... that is if we ever reach them ;-) lol
This is what we woke up to on Monday morning!
Alpestris...glacialis...I can't grow either! LOL!
Rann, what a lovely garden..that pond is lovely. Wish I had a feature like that. You at least have some trees leafing...more than I can say! Normally, I would have my trees and shrubs at about the same stage but this horrible cold spring has slowed things to a snail's pace. Since I leaf home last week we did have 3 days close to 20 C so perhaps there are some leaves out now....goodness knows the trees were getting ready to burst. It is 10 C at home today and 10 yesterday so that is helping too. My the time I get home on June 3 I expect or at least hope, there will be plenty of leaves out...maybe lots of alpines too!
This weather is just so weird. We were having record cold and today it got close to 90F.
Tomorrow is predicted to be there. Historical high for the day is 93F, set in 1906.
Tam
Thanks Todd :-) We just got the bridge a few days ago - really like how it fit exactly and puts a very nice touch - we just had a home-made flat bridge before - this one looks so much better :-) The plants have just stopped growing here for the past week - I'm sure the alpines are enjoying living in a refrigerator - but I'm not quite as happy about it! At least refrigerated flowers last a long time so I guess that's some consolation ;-)
Tam- although I'd love to get some slightly warm temps 90 is just toooo much!
This one isn't growing in my tiny rock garden but it's in flower now (and has been for a while!) - Primula denticulata.
5/18 we had a pretty heavy frost; 5/24 it hit 91* F. somewhere in between there we should have had spring LOL
Rann, your new bridge is beautiful!
Tam, thanks for the tip on the cyclamen. I don't think the instructions that came with the seed mentioned darkness.
Thanks Gram - that's some serious temperature difference in only week's time! Did the frost do much damage? The low's for the past week have been just above freezing so we've been lucky so far - I think it's finally supposed to start warming up a bit next week. It's almost up to 50°F today so we're slowly getting there ;-)
Rann, the frost didn't really hurt anything. we generally don't plant anything tender before the last week of May here. I think it might have gotten a few of my wintersown seedlings, but nothing significant.
New blooms! I'll start with the first bloom on my clematis viorna with the lynchnis from
Todd's seed blooming for the first time.
Tam
Here's a lewisia cotyledon, aster alpina and geranium nana in bloom
Edrandius (sp?), a small chrysanthemum, and an achillea I got at
a NARGS sale a couple years ago. Its finally blooming.
Isn't that Lychnis delightful Tammy! I have a viorna grown from seed last year...it survived but I expect another two years before I see flowers.
Cool pics, Tammy. Your Aster alpinus is at least twice as large as my Aster alpinus Goliath!
and the lovely plants from Tammy keep coming! Tam, for the size of your garden, you certainly have a wonderful variety.
I have just gotten back from Waterton Lake National park....lots of cool early alpines. Unfortunately it will be June 10 before I have regular access to the internet so bear with me and I should have a wonderful display to share!
I can't wait!
I'm sure they'll be worth waiting for..
Tammy - beautiful! That Geranium nana is so tiny! Very cute :-)
Here are a few more photos of some alpines in bloom - first one is Ranunculus parnassifolia. All these photos were taken on Tuesday night (29th May) around 10 - 10:30 pm
Primula auricula with Cortusa matthioli in the background
Potentilla verna
