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:

Seeds and Seed Pods-4

This time no seed pods, only withered flowers, but it was so interesting I thought I should post it here.

I've already wrote about this nice bluebell in a post in June.

Campanula raddeana 

It is characteristic to bluebells (Campanula) that the pollen is ripe already when the flower is not yet open. This partly prevents self pollination because the stigma becomes receptive only after the opening of the flower. As the sticky style is elongating and pushing itself through the other parts of the flower, it collects pollen grains:

In case of Campanula raddeana the stamens interestingly curl back after the anthers had released the pollen.
Later the stigma splits to three parts and from now on it is ready to welcome the pollen. If there is still some fertile pollen grain around.
On the following picture you can se  the split stigma, but don't be deceived! It splits when the flower is still fresh, this picture was taken a little too late.

Self pollination in general is not common to bluebells, but sometimes happens. I don't know what about this species but I think it is not self fertile. There were many flowers in June but no seeds at all. According to botanists there are many insects visiting bluebells but their pollination capacity is not the same.

Now it is flowering again, though not so abundantly as in June.

Here you can se better the curled stamens and the stigma and style with pollen. To show this, I had to pull off the wilted, papery petals – it was not easy.

It would be nice to collect some seeds from this pretty Campanula, but I don't think I will have the opportunity...

Source – except of my observations confirmed on my pictures –: Graham Nicholls Dwarf Campanulas (Timber Press, 2006), and some abstracts of scientific papers found on the net.

Campanula raddeana

This is a species from the Caucasus, it lives at about 1000 m in the mountains of Georgia. Graham Nicholls says that it tolerates shade and bad soils surprisingly well  (G. N.: Dwarf campanulas,  Timber Press 2006). On our balcony it gets sunshine from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

I bought a seedling with 1 cm leaves two years ago at Nitra (Slowakia), which has became a 30 cm wide and 25 cm tall shrublet, it flowers first time this year. 

The stems are branched and have many flowers. These are pulling down the stems, so they must be supported.

The leaves are 5 cm long, serrated:

The flower bud is white, the flower itself has a lavenderlike color. It is 3 cm wide and 2 cm long. The pollen is orange-brown.

It makes many stolons, looks quite vigurous (aggressive?), but it is lovely, I like it. Here it is planted in a large clay pot together with Galanthus, Eranthis hyemalis, Hepatica nobilis and an Euonymus fortunei 'Emerald Gaiety'. They seem to like each other. In spring its leaves appear rather late so does not disturb the early flowers, and in summer it "drinks" the excess moisture from the bulbs and Hepatica. And its foliage makes a good shade in summer for the Hepatica's leaves.

According to G. Nicholls it is an easy plant and can be propagated by seed or cuttings. I will see.

Campanula portenschlagiana bloom

This is Campanula raddeana – I hope