It's Simply Spring

And I have a lot to write and show here, but –"So many species, so little time", as Kristl Walek says. I spend most of my free time between our beautiful plants, instead of the ugly computer. I make many pictures but they must be selected and resized to put here.

Now I have a little time to show you how our balcony looked yesterday in sunshine. On 6th March we put all the pots and boxes back to their places – winter is over now.

Now it's raining, but I tell myself that spring rain is good for plants, and try to make some pics with drips.

Iris 'Katharine Hodgkin' in rain

Saxifraga x elisabethae cv. in rain

The End of Summer

I hate the end of summer with the inevitably shortening days.

Yesterday afternoon I made a little collection of what is still enjoyable in our little 'garden' .

Looking through the balustrade of the balcony one can see only a green cavalcade:

but there are some colorful things also.

The blue Campanula portenschlagiana is still in bloom and looks pretty good in the neighborhood of the Habranthus robustus:

Cyclamen purpurascens is also flowering even if not so abundantly as a few weeks ago. This one lives in a pot separately, in the shadow of the lime tree showed yesterday. Maybe I should plant it directly in the big pot of the lime.

The Daphne sericea is a very good plant. After the big spring show it had had all summer some sweet little bouquets for us.  And it also grew a lot, I think it will overgrow its pot more rapidly than I expected for...

The Solenostemons I've got as cuttings this Spring in our  Plants Society give also much color but with their leaves.

And those which are not hardy but bloom all summer. Although not all behaved satisfying at me. Here I want to show only the Brachycome, it only fits in this collection with its little daisy-like flowers. It is perennial and I think it would also fit in a rock garden though not hardy here. I grow it in a separate pot, behind it can be seen my miniature garden with Primulas (not in flower at the moment).

OUR MINIATURE ROCK GARDENS

The 'Palástál' made in spring looks like this now:

The plants have grown not too much during the Summer but this is not unusual, important is that they look healthy except of Leucanthemopsis alpina, who died. If everything goes well they will do better next year, like the others in the 'Ortlerpot' did in their second year:

I've made this 'Ortlerpot' a year ago and it looks very nice. I hope for flowerpower next spring.

This is a smaller, but deeper pot with another Daphne sericea, Potentilla nitida, Saxifraga x andrewsii and Saxifraga 'Leonardo da Vinci'.

And some other developments:

The white Campanula portenschlagiana cuttings are growing well in a semi-shaded place:

The Campanula raddeana made no seeds. This is only chaff:

Draba parnassica

The seedlings in pots died during Summer. But this one put in a 'crevice' is thriving, it has already a nice cushion:

May

Aquilegia coerulea:

On one single stem the calyces and the spurs are bluish:

Lewisia pygmaea – every flower lasts only one day.

Lewisia cotyledon colors:

And the "garden", in front with the Androsace sarmentosa: