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:

Habranthus robustus

It is a bulbous plant of Amaryllidaceae family, native to Argentina and Brazil, not hardy at our climate. I keep it in pots and take it to the cellar before the first frosts. There it waits for spring, in the compost, normally without water, but sometimes our overzealous neighbour waters it. Due to this superfluous watering it has green shots all winter and I have to repot it already in January. I think it also affects the flowering which is not so good as I would expect. The repotting was shown in an earlier post.

It usually begins to flower in June and continues until August. But the peak of blooming is at the beginning, when we usually are somewhere in the Alps on holiday, so I can see only the remnants of late beauty.
Well, there are still some flowers...

It has long, ribbon-like leaves and 7 cm flowers which have a vivid magenta color after opening, but this dims a little on next days. One bulb produces many flowers one after the other. The flower stem is rather long (too long for me). I always remove the dead flowers, so I don't know if it could set seeds.

I mix a ready made compost with 1/3 part perlite for planting. During summer I give it a fertilizer used for flowering pot plants. It produces many bulbils every year, these can reach flowering size in two years. In summer I don't let the compost to dry out but certainly take care to avoid stagnant water.

I have seen window box planted with it. I usually put many bulbs together to have many flowers, but this means I have to give more fertilizer.

Home Again

After two weeks of alpine wanderings, home again. We've seen lovely South-Tirolean houses full of flowers, "tüchtig" kitchen gardens, and naturally a lot of well known and also some new alpine plants on the brink of snowfields and glaciers. But foregoing this, we visited the Rosarium of Baden bei Wien which was also an unforgettable experience. Although this blog refers to our "garden", I think I will tell and show more about these places when I will be ready with picture selection.

During these weeks our plants were watered by a kind relative of us, who was keeping to my instructions put on every single plant!

It's funny that the alpines seemed to tolerate better the absence of the "baas" then the others.

The Petunia has become leggy and with very few flowers. After a lot of cosmetics is still does not look too well. Well, I tried Petunia the first time this year :)

Neither the Nemesia did fulfill my expectations. Yes, it lives and blooms, but I hoped for a larger clump filled with flowers by midsummer...

Regarding the perennials, the sempervivums are now on the top:

Looking from close, the flowers are really like some jewels:

Habranthus robustus is also flowering, but not too intensive...

Cyclamen purpurascens is just beginning. The florist's Cyclamen persicum, instead of summer dormancy, is in full bloom. Maybe because of the cold at early summer. I must repot it in full flower...

Campanula portenschlagiana and C. raddeana still have some flowers and buds, though not too much.
And Daphne sericea, shown already in April, has all the time some flowers:

Repotting Bulbs

On this weekend I repotted the two bulbous plants which are not hardy here (at least in pot). They usually overwinter in their pot in the cellar, in dry conditions. In early spring I repot them, water and wait for the new shoots to water again. After the repotting they are placed in the more luminous but cool staircase until May when they take up their places on the balcony.

The truth is that I make every year another potting mix, because I don't like to tear about for ingredients so I mix it from what I have at home. Important is to contain some nutrients and to have good drainage. This year's potting compost: 

• 1 part humus bought from nursery
• 1 part ready made, peat based, "general" potting compost also from nursery + some old compost
• 2 parts perlite

Habranthus robustus

Two years ago I've got 5 bulbs from a kind old lady also living in this house. Alas, she is so kind that she waters sometimes the bulb pot in the cellar during the winter. So the bulbs cannot really go dormant, they have some green shoots all the winter. I am not happy with this, because the repotting is more difficult and I think this is the reason why the bulbs do not flower as abundantly as they should.  

She's bulbs are in a more shallow window box and the compost not covered with grit as mine, so she gives them water for the compost not to dry out completely. I told her already two times to leave alone my pot but it was to no effect :)

From the 5 flowering sized bulbs I have already 10 and also many little new bulbs (on the left picture).

Nerine bowdenii

This plant comes from our Vera Csapody Hardy Plant Society. I've got two not flowering sized (min 12 cm circumference) bulbs last spring. Now I have 2 flowering sized and 3 little bulbs with healty roots.

There is an interesting point with the Nerine. In Hungary it is not really hardy, Hungarian books say that it must be planted deep to overwinter safely. BUT, I've read some English opinions that it will not flower when planted deep in the soil, and that the upper 1/3 part of the bulb must be out of compost just like Amaryllis, because it needs much air. As I grow it in pot and put it inside for winter, I follow this latter method and we will see. The upper 1/3 part is covered only with grit.

I always cover the compost in every pot with grit or pine bark. It depends on what passes more for the plant in question. It looks nicer than bold compost and is drying out more slowly. And it is also easier to water. The weeds come out anyway, covered or not. Mosses we don't quite have at our balcony, it is too hot and dry for them.