Surprise

This one had never flowered for us until now, neither in spring, nor in autumn. We bought it in Prague 3 years ago.

Draba imbricata

Draba imbricata

Harbingers of Spring

Yes I know this is a nonsense, because the pictures show some overwintering buds, not an oddity at all.
But after all  the spring explosion is somewhere packed in them, and so they contain the promises.

Two herbaceous perennials, whose buds are overwintering near the soil surface:

Cortusa matthioli Alba

Dodecatheon sp.

An early flowering evergreen perennial with buds overwintering in the leaf rosette:

Draba lasiocarpa

And finally a shrublet:

Daphne sericea

And then the camera's accumulators went dead... Maybe I will continue this topic later if I can find another promising buds around.

Orostachys

I have written about it two months ago and I promised pictures when in flower.

Our balcony is not a good place for it because the plant gets sun only from one part and consequently the flowers open only on that part. It looks rather strange.

I bought some bulbs again:

• Iris 'Katharine Hodgkin' – 5 
• Tulipa turkestanica – 7 
• Narcissus bulbocodium – 4
• Sternbergia lutea – well, this was a present, many corms, the flowers just over.

Everything was planted in pots, the rest comes in spring.

Talk About Alpines

I was invited to another club to make a talk about our alpine plant hunting trips. It will take place on 3rd November at 6 p.m. The title is: Flowers in the World of Glaciers, and I will make a presentation about the Ortler region of the Alps and its flowers.

Visitor

My husband catched (with the camera) a little hoverfly labouring on the Crocus pulchellus:

Some time ago I have thought that these are some kind of wasps, and one has to be careful with them. I learned from Ian Young's bulblog that hoverflies (Syrphus)  are very useful insects. They pollinate our flowers and their larvae eat aphids. And do not bite at all. So they are very welcomed on our balcony. :)

Two Autumn Flowering Crocuses and Other Corms and Bulbs

Yesterday was plant swapping day at our Vera Csapody Hardy Plant Society and I purchased again some bulbs and corms. Not too much, just to have a little display in spring and also in autumn, because last winter I lost almost all our bulbs.

I planted them all and I will write about these in spring when in flower.

I also bought two autumn flowering Crocuses:

Crocus kotschyanus

Crokus kotschyanus

Crocus pulchellus

Crocus pulchellus

We Must Prepare for the Winter

Sadly.

This autumn was very rainy and cold. The autumn colors are not so wonderful as usual as the leaves suffer from all kind of awful fungal diseases because of the much cold rain. Our lime tree has lost all his foliage by now, which in "normal" years had happened only by the end of October.

I don't want the alpines to be wet any more, so we put the cover on the troughs in the garden. We cooked up something new this year, my husband made it and I believe him that it is stabile and okay.

At last the leaves of Cyclamen graecum are showing up. I've got these corms two years ago, in rather bad condition though with some healthy roots. But until now I did not manage to convince them to flower. I think these are only leaves again:

Cyclamen graecum

Here you can see the size relative to my fingertip:

Cyclamens

Here are my new Cyclamen seedlings (seeds sown by a friend, not by me):

Cyclamen africanum

 Cyclamen alpinum

Cyclamen cyprium

Cyclamen pseudibericum

Cyclamen repandum

The Cyclamen libanoticum is still sleeping.

Seed Pods-6

This time only one.

Here is the seed pod of the Bowiea volubilis shown a few weeks ago:

The diameter of the seed pod is about 8 mm, the seeds are 1,5 x 4 mm. And now is the plant really flowering!.

Repotting some seedlings-2

This has happend in fact on August 10, but is still absolutely topical, I think.

Lewisia rediviva

I've got the seeds from an SRGC member from England and sowed them on April 13th 2008. 5 seeds germinated after about 9.5 months, in 2009. They are repotted now at the first time. I learned that this is the time when deciduous Lewisias have to be repotted. The seedlings look like miniature carrots. They are approximative 4-5 cm long:

I made a compost with 1/3 commercial acidic compost for rhododendrons, 1/3 perlite, 1/3 sharp sand and a pinch of bone meal. I did not water them after repotting. In the resting period one has to be careful with water, so I better begin to water when they start to grow. That is now, after 3 weeks:

To have an idea about the size of this baby: this is a 6x6 cm pot. The grit is granite, I hope. I have bought it in a garden center, but they had no idea what it is (we are in Hungary!!!). I hope for flowers next Spring.

They are absolutely hardy here. they spent the last Winter outside, in dry compost. The leaves looked awful at the and of the frosty season but recovered nicely.

Cyclamen hederifolium

I've got the seedlings this Spring in our plants society. They rested during Summer almost dry and now I wanted to look 'in the wings' to see what was happening :) The corms were still very little, approx. 3-5 mm, and they just started to push out the new shoots:

They were potted, and after 3 weeks, look at the new leaves emerging:

OTHER CYCLAMENS

I've got these also as seedlings in Spring, and now I only looked what were they making, I had not disturb the roots.

Cyclamen cyprium

Cyclamen libanoticum

Cyclamen pseudibericum

This is beginning to grow! So I watered it.

All these 3 are in 6x6 cm pots.

On this weekend (Sept. 5th) I watered all our Cyclamens to start them growing.