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:

Cyclamen purpurascens Encore

I showed it in an earlier post, but I must show it again because it is simply beautiful. And one can not see on the picture that there are countless buds below the leaves.

Cyclamen purpurascens

 It is native also to Hungary, but I've never seen it in the wild as yet. I have seen it in Croatia near the Plitvice Lakes in the woods, where there were beautiful clumps with rich flower buckets in early September.

I swapped the tubers with a gardener from Linz, Austria. He has many in his garden, and sent me 8 large tubers and 6 seedlings  by mail, packed carefully in moss and a perforated plastic bag. All are alive and feeling well. I gave some to my friends, these are also thriving.

Two weeks ago I told it did not flower too well this year. Now I see that this was wrong, it was just a little later compared to last year's flowering. Now there are many flowers and their colors are much better than a year ago. And also the seedlings are flowering already! At nights their scent fulfill the balcony.

I cultivate the large tubers in a 20 cm crock pot. I made a humous-gritty-sandy compost for them and this is covered with a 2 cm layer of dolomite grit. I water it only once a week in summer, but I give then a copious amount of water. They are very hardy also in pot, but I have to be careful the compost not to be too wet then. I used to pack the pot in paper or plunge it in pine needle or dry peat to the rim. Sometimes the leaves were frozen, but they recovered and flowered well every summer. The seedlings spent the winters in the frost free staircase until now.

They are put in shade during hot summer days, but this spring I thought I would let them to get sunshine until the trees leaf. They live in deciduous woods where they are shined below the bare trees in early spring.

I have many seeds every year, but I give it to seed exchanges, until now I've never tried to sow them.