Alpines in June

Well its a new month and our last thread was getting long. here are some more from the garden this week. Most of these were taken with a black cardboard placed behind the plant to create a studio-like image. This Anemone nemorsa 'Royal Blue'

Erythronium americanum

Erythronium 'White Beauty'

Fritillaria crassifolia..this plant is only 6" tall

Phlox bryoides

Pulsatilla vulgaris is finally peaking

Pulsatilla georgica

and Primula glaucescens

thanks Todd... for the new thread as well as the gorgeous photos.
That black cardboard really does allow the plants to shine.

The first two supposed Liebnitzia nepalense plants' seeds were released yesterday - exactly three weeks from the flowers opening. However, I am rather doubtful that the seed is viable. Although they look normal, they are only, say, one-fourth the size of the summer seed. Any experience or comments about this?

Altagdnr, that Primula polyneura is exactly one that I have (and didn't know the name). I don't suppose there could be any look a likes to that. Thanks.

And Todd, thanks for another ID. I though it might be some kind of Silene. Remember this pic from last year?

And here it is this year in the upper right:

Excellent photos, Todd. I happened to get a stowaway Erythronium when I dug an Iris brevifolia from a Minnesota NARGS member's (and SIGNA member) garden.

Rick, well, yes, there are look-alikes... the Cortusoides group members are generally similar.

The following is according to John Richards (Primula), and I am just noting the points that seem to differ:

P. cortusoides: "leaf blade sparsely hairy on both sides, rather thin in texture, narrowly oval, to 9x6cm; corrugated with 4-6 shallow and blunt irregular lobes on each side between veins, the lobes toothed"; corolla "usually with a yellow eye; petal-lobes rounded and variably notched".

P. polyneura: leaves "sparsely hairy to hairless above, usually thickly covered with whitish, or more rarely reddish bristly or cottony hairs beneath, especially on the veins, but occasionally nearly hairless; Leaf-blades thicker in texture than P. cortusoides, scarcely longer than wide, to about 10 cm, divided to one-third into between 7 and 11 rather regular, somewhat blunt triangular lobes which are distinctly longer and more regular than in P. cortusoides"; corolla "with a greenish-yellow to orange eye"; "petal-lobes with widely notched or rarely toothed end".

P. sieboldii "is readily distinguished from P. cortusoides and P. polyneura by the spreading sepal lobes, and the creeping habit"; "Also, the flower never has a yellow eye."

And then there's P. saxatilis which has "longer flower-stalks, resulting in umbels with a more open and drooping aspect (than P. cortusoides), but P. cortusoides appears to be more variable for this character, and in particular, the flower-stalks in this species tend to lengthen with maturity". (He concludes that
P. saxatilis is P. cortusoides.)

I got my supposed P. polyneura from seed from Gardens North, and so far, have not been totally convinced to call it something else...

Again, my Primula ignorance showing. Come to think of it, I think, somewhere, I picked up a primula book on the "cheap". I'll have to go look for it.

BTW Alta, in your original pic of polyneura here:
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=5034169
Is that Corydalis cheilanthifolia in the foreground? Nice photographic composition.

Tammy, at your plant sales, do you allow other perennials besides rock plant? Really, that's where we make the money.

Thanks, Rick... yes, you ID'd the corydalis correctly - a nice plant, I like it.

Great photos, as always, Todd. Now that I have a better camera, I'll have to try the black cardboard technique.

It's the beginning of penstemon season here...
Penstemon rupicola 'Pink Holly':

More Penstemon nitidus; a seedling from a couple of years ago. My very old plants are reduced now to one stem each, but luckily penstemons can be counted on to produce prodigious amounts of seed, so there are lots of young ones coming along! They are starting to bloom in the park too, though the plants are 1/3 or so the size of mine "in captivity", despite that they are in rather poor soil.




This message was edited Jun 2, 2008 8:23 PM

Well, it's subalpine at least (best I could do, LOL!)... Thymus neiceffii - a most amazingly early-blooming thyme; very interesting foliage too.

An interesting double flower form, Anemone nemorosa 'Leed's Variety':

Your still ahead of me Alta...my double anemone (called 'Vestal') is about a week or so from blooming and Pen. rupicola is just starting to bud.

Yes, we are a bit ahead of you here... The first big flush of bloom on Pulsatilla vulgaris is over; still some bloom, but usually only flowers at the base of the plants, under a tall canopy of seedheads.

My P. rupicola in a pot should bloom in several more days. Your P. nitidus is a knockout color. Looking at the foliage, it must be closely related to our native P. grandiflorus. Here it seems to do best in almost pure sand.

Iris reichenbachii from NARGS seed bloomed for the first time this spring. It's in a 10cm/4inch pot.

If you could only see . . . the netting is quite beautiful and intricate toward the center of the flower.

Fritillaria camschatcensis is blooming in a couple gardens now.

Wow, love the iris... how unusual! And the frit too... is that Saruma henryi next to it?

Indeed it is Saruma henryi. Also Uvularia grandiflora, Impatiens glandulosa(glandulifera?), Arrhenatherum elatius ssp. bulbosum 'Variegatum' (obviously does better with more sun).

Geum alpinum 'Beech House Apricot'... is the species truly alpine?

Rick - we sell any type of plant at our sales. We did put together an
invasive plant list to help defend ourselves from donations of trash. We
let folks have a "first pick" for every ten they donate so some of the not-so-
scrupulous bring junk to get those first picks. Most members do bring
great stuff and the majority of the plants are rock gardening/alpines.
Things sell very cheaply - its a benefit of membership. We've had several
on-going discussions about our pricing. An "expensive" plant might sell
for $3 and the very small or common stuff can sell for as little as $0.50.

I am terrible at labelling stuff - the labels from Beaver Creek have faded.
So I don' t know the species of this sax

Here's a beauty I am falling in love with more every year.
Edrainthus Tenufolia. I'll post the bloom first and then the
shot showing the whole plant. (Its surrounded by volunteers
I will need to pull soon... but I have a hard time pulling such
pretties).

Its got more blooms coming too.

Here's a very pretty penstemon that I had thought was smallii. I think its
actually lyallii. Any opinions? The blooms are pink and the folliage is almost
golden

Tammy, I meant to mention this over at the ID forum... there is a penstemon forum where the penstemon experts hang out (e.g. Bob Nold)... similar to Alpine-L (maybe Penstemon-L?) I'm sure you could get a good ID there... (Warning: Be prepared to describe the stamens in great detail.. important to penstemon ID's!) I'll try to remember to post the site if you are interested in trying there.

If I may suggest it, if fading labels are a problem, have you ever considered just making a map (i.e. a sketch) of your troughs, so as to keep track of the plant ID's without relying on tags? It's easy for small areas like troughs. (Of course, there are also the engraved copper tags, etc. that can be stuck in the ground and pulled up to check ID's... I go with maps myself.)

Tammy, we have grappled with the question of whether our plant sales should be directly for the benefit of members with very cheap prices, or make money for funding our meeting speaker (mainly). Our spring sale open to the public is the fund raiser, and our August sale is for members and guests only.

I have P. lyallii seedlings, but I don't think they will bloom this year. My smallii seedlings didn't last the winter.

My troughs are named or numbered, and I keep a list of what is in each.

My "Primula polyneura".

Whaddaya think?

Tammy, here's the Penstemon-L site, if you wish to have your penstemon ID'd there:
http://botuweb.bio.uu.nl/Penstemon-L/identification/index.php?casus=5

Love the edrianthus, especially!

Rick... sure, looks like P. polyneura to me, but what do I know? LOL! Now that I finally have P. saxatilis to compare with (grown from seed this year and blooming!), I'm going to go out this weekend and see if I can apply Richard's criteria to tell the difference (if any) between it and my supposed P. polyneura.

P.saxatilis grown from seed this year and blooming!

WOW !!!

And we'll be waiting for your species assessments.

I guess my Penstemon rupicola did start blooming today. This is last year's pic:

I just have to post another photo of this one... the number of blossoms is astounding... Lewisia longipetala that I just got this spring:

Another repeat... this really is a charming plant and I'll be sorry now if it doesn't winter...
Petrocoptis pyrenaica var. glaucifolia:

The soft color on those lewisia flowers a very nice. I have Lewisia longipetala in the last trough I posted on this thread. At least that's the name it was given to me as. They were seedlings then, and this is the first year they will be blooming. Flower stems don't just lie on the rock mulch, they hug it. Lift them gently, and they snap back down! Reading Todd's current Lewisia article, that would make them L. pymaea. I guess I will know for sure when they bloom.

In that same trough, Dracocephalum botryoides is beginning to bloom now.

Not to take away from your Petrocoptis, a worth plant indeed, but my that's a silvery potentilla looking thing just to the right of it. Care to ID?

Hey, no problem... I just finished mapping the new rock garden and pulling out the tags. It's Potentilla speciosa, with Salix cf. kurilensis to the upper left.
Hmm, what does Dracocephalum botryoides look like? (Love to see a picture, hint, hint.) I grew D. palmata from seed this year and it's extremely cute - wonder how similar they are.