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:

Others Coming and Going

The Armeria juniperifolia is nice also when fading. This is a white form or subspecies or cultivar – Hungarian garden shops don't have information about such trifles.

Saxifraga cochlearis minor – will flower for the first time for us. I bought it in Prague in 2008. It was just flowering at that time, but in my opinion not the flowers are its utmost beauty. There are some dull, little white flowers on a loose panicle. But the cushion is nice, that's why I like it. Yet I let it to flower. Here it is with buds:

It lives in an artificial crevice in a trough. The compost is almost pure sand, only with a little peat. Its cushion is growing rapidly but is nice, compact and tolerates very well our hot summers. I water it regularly and abundantly from early spring to autumn. In wintertime it gets no water at all.

Here is the Dryas octopetala, and in the background Androsace villosa, in a trough in the garden. In the same trough lives a Pinus mugo, but it behaves itself very well. 

The first Lewisia cotyledon flower has opened. And what a beautiful color! There are countless buds on every plant, so in a few days will be a real flower feast. Especially if also Androsace sarmentosa begins to bloom...

And now a test.

In the cushion of Draba imbricata (also from Prague, 2008) are some yellowing rosettes:

With tweezers I pulled out those yellow leaf rosettes:

The cushion is tight, compact, we will see if the yellowing stops now.

Some Are Coming, Some Are Going

Still there are some which will flower later. But the coming summer will bring for our garden more and more less flowers :( OK, not yet time for crying.

The Gentiana and Primula flowers are over.

The Androsace pubescens flowers are still nice and just blooming the Androsace villosa and the Dryas octopetala – this one only with 4 flowers... Picture maybe next time. They live in the trough in the garden.

The Lewisia cotyledons have nice buds:

And the  Dodecatheon

It is just opening the fist flower of the plant which seeds came as  Aquilegia scopulorum. And I am quite sure now that it is NOT A. scopulorum. It is larger (30 cm leaves and 47 cm flower stalks), and the flower is pure white. Yet I love it, so it deserves a photo:

Later suggested a friend that this is maybe Aquilegia coerulea.

And finally an Iris flower. This plant had never flowered for us until now. It lives in a cast-off "Römertopf" (a crock pot from the kitchen), together with Sedum dasyphyllum and Colchicum arenarium. The pot is shallow (10 cm?), the compost very sandy and I water it very rare: in spring once a week, in summer only once in a fortnight. The colchicum flowers in autumn, now it has leaves.

Iris 'Knick Knack', Sempervivum calcareum, Sedum dasyphyllum