What's blooming in the alpine/rock garden?

Nice flowers, everyone! How hardy are romulea, I wonder? Is anyone here growing them in colder zones?

Finally, the first of the hepatica flowers - actually a deep, rich blue-purple, but I can't capture it on film! - H. transylvanica:

This Babiana dregei is south African bulb plants and suitable for desert rock garden.

The gorgeous flower look like a orchid.

Native Japanese ericaceous shrub Enkianthus perulatus.
They are indigenous at altitudes between 1000 and 2000 meters above sea level. This one is in my garden, though : )

Corydalis solida ssp. solida starting to bloom, as are Adonis vernalis, Pulsatilla alpina...

Primula sieboldii cv. "Hokutosei"

The flowers are like snowflakes.

Very first Pulsatilla vulgaris of the year, a young self-seeded one...

Ooops, here it is!

Pulsatilla alpina.

Gorgeous pulsatilla! That downy fur is wonderful.

First flower on Adonis amurensis 'Fukujukai'... looks pretty wimpy now, I know, but it will fill out and put out a lot more flowers in the next while!

Assorted croci... which I just can't stop going out to look at, LOL!

Among the mostly "garden-variety" (so to speak) crocus I have, I think Crocus tomassinianus is my favourite (right side of photo):

I lost the double adonis I had and really regret it even more after seeing yours - it's wonderful.

Oops, wrong photo, sorry!
Crocus tomassinianus et al:

Thanks, Galanthophile... your climate is so much milder, and the plants so much more advanced, that these photos must be like reliving late winter for you, LOL! Would love to see more photos of your garden - your plants look so lovely!

Corydalis solida ssp. solida:

Yes my crocus tomassinianus are long gone! This erythronium Pagoda is in bloom now.

I have masses of these self sown fritillaria meleagris in my garden and they are delightful.

Primula auricula Albert Bailey - a new one for me this year.

Beautiful! What an unusually-coloured primula! Over on the SRGC forum, there was some amazement over a photo of F. meleagris with two flowers per stem... surely this can't be so unusual? I noticed several here with two and even three flowers last year... must make a note to watch this year!

Ya know, I never thought of the regular species C. solida being soooo red. Or, perhaps color doesn't differentiate the subspecies. Hmmm. Anyone know? (We can't expect Todd to jump in here. He's in Ecuador.)

The Minnesota Arboretum has a nice form of C. solida, IMO:

More pics from the MN Arboretum rock garden.

Tulipa tarda

Tulipa kaufmanniana 'Scarlet Baby'

Tulipa kaufmanniana 'Shakespear'

Tulipa humilis 'Violacea'

Iris retuculata 'Clarette'

Jeffersonia dubia

Rick, I was wondering where you were! The corydalis I posted used to be called C. transylvanica, but now, apparently, it is preferred to call it C. solida ssp. solida, for whatever reasons. It seems to be the normal colour for it, compared to the plants I see over at SRGC (which I recently joined), for example. 'George Baker' is another very red, even orangey, form of C. solida. Other red C. solida selections are 'Prasil Strain', 'Zwanenburg' (see below)... no doubt others.
http://www.hillkeep.ca/bulbs%20corydalis.htm#Pr%E1%9Ail%20Strain'.%A0

Whoo-hoo, my Erythronium dens-canis has gone from 1 flower, in the past couple of years, to 4 flowers this year! Huzzah, huzzah! Hmm, I'm almost encouraged to try other species... almost.... I'm not sure I want to wait as long as I did for this one!

Wow, there's that fantastic J. dubia again - outstanding! Is it the one from the arboretum there?

Yes what a fantastic specimen of J dubia! I was pleased with 2 flowers on my plant this year!

Yes, that is the MN Arb Jeffersonia (and of course, a pic of the best one). And just two days before, we (our NARGS Chapter) did our first spring clean up of the garden, and the Jeffersonia was only 2 inches high. I just happened to catch it because I was volunteering there for another function. Bobbi, who volunteered me, is really going to be bumbed that she had to leave, and couldn't take the time to wander the garden.

I was thinking some more about my C.solida comment concerning yours, Alta, and now consider it ridiculous. Of course there are variations. But I have seen pics of other selections (like George Baker), and was just surprised that yours was so much better. I think it should be named.

Would still like to know what differentiates the sspp., though.

Well, I'm game... what shall we name it? ;) Yeah, it's often difficult to find keys to different genera. Is there a monograph on corydalis - that's available in print (which would help) - I wonder?

Erythronium dens-canis:

Oh, I think I found an answer, possibly the answer: Corydalis by Magnus Lidén and Henrik Zetterlund (ISBN 0-900048-66-2).

This message was edited Apr 19, 2009 7:08 PM

Yes, that's the one. Jānis Rukšāns mentions it (if I remember correctly) in his book Buried Treasures.

Out of all the E's, I think dens-canis is the best, or at least yours sure is.

I'm trying to think of a descriptive name for your corydalis starting with "L". Can't seem to come up with one.

Here are Japanese woody land plants.
Polygonatum odoratum var.pluriflorum ''variegatum''

Calanthe discolor Lindl.

Arisaema sikokianum

from an anterior view

Fabulous arisaema. If I was going to have one of those I think I'd pick that variety.