Peonies - and the Rest

Variants, and something cute

2011-06-10T17:09:00.007-03:00

Paeonia peregrina, usually deep red but varying towards salmon/coral in some populations in the wild. This is the first non-red flower that has shown itself here. Quite a standout.

This cute little thing is Arisarum proboscoides, called the Mouse Tail Plant. Its foliage is the arrowhead shaped stuff in the next photo down. The genus name celebrates the similarities of the flower with the Arisaemae (jack-in-the-pulpits and cobra lilies) and of the growth habit with the Asarums (hardy gingers); one really has to dig through the foliage to find the flowers.

I would have taken the piece of plastic out of there before taking the picture, but honestly didn't see it!!

Okay, back to peonies. The following 3 photos show variation of flower colour between plants from a single open-pollinated seedlot (collected here) of Paeonia veitchii (Veitch's Peony)
The darkest is really somewhat redder than the photo shows, but there is something about the way the camera catches the light which overemphasizes the blue tint. (and it has nothing to do with blue sky, because there was none that day or most other days since the start of May!!)
The mid-pink is most common, here.

More of White Anomala

2011-06-06T16:31:00.001-03:00

As hoped, a better photo of the flower.

And a close-up of the reproductive parts. The stigmas seem very small.

My report of the possibility of a few more coming into bloom shortly was premature. Along the lines of "don't count your peonies until they flower"; all the others were the normal pink/rose. The relative paleness of the early foliage either a figment of my imagination or unrelated to the eventual flower colour. Well, now we know.

My two plants are co-located, but bloomed sequentially this year so no cross-pollination. For that matter no by-hand selfing either, since I never managedto get any pollen onto a brush for transfer. I hope the insects have done a good job for me. If there is a seed set, it will be about 2015 or 16 before I know if I have true seedlings, so don't start writing cheques yet.

An Anomaly of the Anomaous Peony

2011-06-01T20:49:00.002-03:00

After years of waiting, and from the wrong seed batch!, blooms of a Paeonia anomala forma alba: the white-flowered form of Paeonia anomala. One bloomed after a fashion last year, but the flower was stunted and damaged by weather and insects, so this year's is really my first. There is again some insect damage to the outer petals, which I don't ever see on normal pink anomala or any other peony for that matter! This is the first day, and the flower I think is not completely open; should get a fully-open photo added soon.

The foliage is lighter green than the species normally has (especially when first emerging), and without the reddish stem that marks most of my other anomala's, but is otherwise within the normal range for size, shape and narrowness of segmentation.

Two known plants (the bud of the second has coloured up but not yet opened) and a couple of others that I think will be white but the buds are still green. Which means that with a bit of skillful paintbrush hand-pollinating a decent seed set should result (if not this year then soon? I have noticed that some peonies do not set seed in their first year of flowering; and there is always the weather issue!)

A Sudden Outburst of Sun-- and Peonies

2011-05-30T21:26:00.016-03:00

The cold and grey of most of May was good for one thing: watching the Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy) bike race on tv. The Spaniard Contador, after whose exploits I've named a peony, was in a fine fettle, lit up the race a few times, and won the thing. Great style to watch on the bike, and explosive uphill. Motivating.

Finally things warmed up here, outside, although remaining cloudy. Then 2 days of sun and it was suddenly almost hard to hear anything except peonies popping.

I had decided to try my darndest to prevent the bees from cross-pollinating the darker-flowered species into the lighter ones. This has meant clipping the buds of many plants while they are well-coloured but not quite open. But what to do with them all? Well, a couple of floating cut-flower projects have evolved. 6 buds of P mascula filled a large glass mixing bowl once all opened, but I'd have needed over a dozen of them. So some clean plastic planting trays sufficed, or will eventually, for the rest, holding about 40 buds each (now working on the third). In addition to mascula, there are a lot of P caucasica and P kesrouanensis, some P ruprechtiana (all 3 of those of the mascula clan and very similar), and a few early P veitchii and P officinalis.

So now the yellows and whites are free to be bee'd without muddying their colours, if not exactly keeping their gene pools clean (I'll do some hand-pollinating with a paintbrush to help that aspect). But wait, I also really need seed of P triternata, so there is the slight chance of some pink after all. Oh well. And then there's the bright red P tenuifolia in bloom in one location: that colour is welcome to mix with the yellows if it wants!

Blogger refuses to insert photos in the order I send them, and moving them around has crashed the blog more than once, so the following are not in my preferred order; but what the heck.

White form of P steveniana, flower and plant. That's about as open as the flowers of this species get.

A very pale form of P mlokosewitschii, which started to open yesterday. There is a subtle blush of pink at the base of the petals. I call this the "Moonlight form". This plant is one year out of the pot, where it had 2 stems last year.

P mlokosewitschii proper, the Golden Peony.

P steveniana proper, a bit paler than mlokosewitschii and a bit darker than P tomentosa (which is done now). And a grouping of 3 plants.

And just to prove that I'm not totally against the "pinks" this year, a nice dark-flowered form of P caucasica.

The 2011 Peony Season Commmences

2011-05-20T22:56:00.003-03:00

Shockingly, an update to this blog. Spring has been wet, and cold until just recently, but plants are either ahead of normal or somewhat behind: no consistent trend that I can figure out.

Last year I finally planted a Paeonia mairei in a bed, so I now know that it blooms about at the same time as what I had normally considered the first of the peonies. It looks like it suffered a wee whirlwind in its vicinity recently, and one of the flowering stems folded and failed before the bud could open. I didn't take a photo of the one open flower because it is somewhat windblown and ratty, or more precisely I should say shredded by raindrops and well-munched by slugs. A tidy, compact plant. For a good photo of the flower, see entries from previous years.

The normal "first", Paeonia tomentosa or the Woolly Peony. Usually the plants down in the shade beds open a week later than the ones near the house, but this year they are opening simultaneously. No real surprise, it truly has been no brighter in the open than in the woods this year!!!! and this plant species proves it.

Pale yellow with a touch of green.

Things peony-wise will look a bit imbalanced here this year: in order to get decently true seed without off-colour pollution, I will be removing the buds of the red/ magenta/ pink species plants where they overlap with the yellow species. I tried to interest a florist in them, but couldn't; so I will probably end up with floating dozens of them in trays of water in the house (and hopefully not stepping in one during a middle-watch visit to the wc)

Not about Plants this time-- Jan Lisiecki Recital

2010-09-21T21:33:00.003-03:00

This is worth writing about (and it fits into here better than any of the other blogs I do.)

Last Friday night after a recital (good but not outstanding) in Wolfville by soprano Wendy Nielson I found out by accident that the young (15 now) Calgary pianist Jan Lisiecki was performing there the next night. I'd heard some of his playing and an interview with him on CBC radio last spring and perhaps even earlier and had been impressed by what I heard musically and also the personality aspect. So out on the bike on Saturday I thought about making another quick raid on Wolfville by car(!!) and although I had used the car every day that week (outrageous, I know it) I decided that it was unlikely he would play the Maritimes again in my lifetime since he was certain to be in worldwide demand very soon if he isn't already, so this was really a chance that I couldn't pass up. So I went. And am ever so glad that I did.

At the beginning of each half of the program and at a few points during it, he spoke to the audience about the music and to pass on his gratitude to the organizers. He was well-spoken, had a confident manner, connected well with the audience, and spoke without notes. All to the good.

His program started with a couple of works by Bach, then a piece by the Canadian composer Mozetich, and then a set of Chopin Etudes before the intermission and 6 other Chopin works after it. Bach was spoiled for me in my childhood by being forced to play too much of it for competitions. But I enjoyed it as a program opener. Mozetich: well, maybe I had heard the name on the radio but that was about it. But the piece Jan played was very good and I'm grateful to him for introducing me to this composer, and I think he did the composer justice in his treatment of the piece.

But the Chopin: my God! I can't speak to the technical aspect of his playing; I'm sure there is room for improvement, but there was nothing jarring to this set of ears. Let's just say his fingers were nimble and danced over the keyboard with speed and grace, but also with strength. I very much enjoyed his phrasing of the music with various tempo changes and the full range of volume dynamics from an exquisite featherweight touch to the full force of his body. And he played from his heart, baring his soul and that of the music to the audience. It was fantastic!!

Of the pieces that I knew from recordings, his performance suffered by comparison with none of the artists I've heard. Of the ones that were new to me, it was just magic.

I knew that piano music could make me weep, but when he played the Chopin Nocturne No. 20 in C-sharp minor I discovered to my surprise that in the right hands a piano could weep. Cellos, vioins, even horns-- yes, I had heard them weep. But a piano-- I wouldn't have credited it. Now I know better.

Following the oh so moving Nocturne, Jan concluded with a tour de force in the Andante spianato et grand polonaise brillante, E-flat Major, Op. 22 with a verve and intensity and brilliance suitable for the evening's finale. Breathtaking, and I was jumping out of my skin.

For readers of this blog, if you get a chance to go to one of his performances, don't hesitate-- just GO! I don't think you'll regret it unless you truly dislike classical piano as a genre.

There was an amusing incident at the end of the intermission when Jan, acting as his own timekeeper, stepped out onto the stage ready to commence-- but the lighting/electrical tech wasn't as punctual so Jan caught everyone by surprise, speaking into a dead microphone with the houselights still up and the stage spots off. Good for him! I liked that when he was ready he went for it. May he continue to keep stage managers on their toes!

The only disappointment of the evening was in no way the young pianist's fault. It would have been nice if the organizers had put a closed-circuit tv camera on the keyboard for display to the audience on an overhead screen; the piano seems to me to be the only instrument which blocks the view of the performer's hands from about half of the audience, and it would have been nice to see the hands in action as well as hearing the music.

Appropriate Colours

2010-07-10T22:06:00.002-03:00

In the prime of bloom just in time for World Cup Sunday, the very late-blooming Azalea "July Jester" vibrant in Oranje. A good choice.

Somewhere around abouts are flowers of yellow and flowers of red but they're not co-located so the "other side" is unrepresented here.

Although really, I'm not particular about who wins the thing just so long as it is a good and interesting game with lots of skills on display, a good pace, and a referee disinterested in blowing his whistle.

Worth the 17 year wait

2010-07-05T21:24:00.007-03:00

Okay, first an addendum on the Hen-and-Chicks of 15 June. About a week later our paths converged again! The chicks were about half again as large, and flying by then (sort of)-- short bursts, and not too high, but then again Spruce Grouse are not exactly a tree-top flier anyways. And then about a week after that there they were again. The chicks were now twice the size of the initial encounter, quite a bit more confident and spread out quite a bit over a larger area, and flying quite well. I only saw about a half-dozen, but am not sure if there has been attrition or if I just didn't see all of them (quite likely since they were in thick undergrowth).

---------------------------------

In 1993 (give or take a year) I got a pair of tiny Styrax japonica (Japanese Snowbell Tree, or Japanese Silverbell) tissue-culture starts through the Rhododendron Society of NS. They were rated as marginally hardy for NS, but at the price of the tissue culture plants it was worth trying out new things and pushing the envelope regularily. Along with the rest of that year's tissue culture plants they were eventually planted out in a nursery bed back in the woods, where I checked on them from time to time as they continued to grow slowly. One of the pair, meant to be pink-flowered if I recall, was lost one winter after surviving several years, the other just kept growing slowly but didn't flower that I can recall, although I have a vague recollection of a carpet of petals one year when I made a rare visit to that area. Early in June this year I noticed that it was covered with what looked like either buds or fertilized ovaries, I couldn't tell and hadn't been past that way earlier in the spring. Over a few weeks they remained stalled as far as size and apparent development were concerned.

This weekend I remembered to go back and check on the tree (it's now about 20 feet tall, having shot up with the wetter summers and milder winters of the last few years). Surprise, absolutely full of flowers, with an enchanting fragrance easily discernable from 20metres away. Stunning to most of the senses. So here's some photos; they're not great, it's hard to get the level of detail needed to appreciate the more distant views.

Oh yeah, in the first photo it is NOT the foreground grey stick with the pileated woodpecker excavations... but you knew that...

The main show of Garden Peonies

2010-06-28T15:18:00.002-03:00

A week and a bit ago the Paeonia lactifloras (the Chinese Peony, or what I call the Garden Peony) started popping into bloom in all their variety of forms and every shade of colour from white to red. How many shades of pink are there anyways?!! Here some views of the groups of potted lactifloras (and some hybrids mainly involving lactiflora parentage) which I've been growing from seed, for sale. Most are blooming this year for the first time, and I have so far photographed and labelled (with a personal number) just over 100 of them, with perhaps 15 or 20 with buds yet to open.

Of course, this being a main peak of the peony season we have been found by heavy rains. First the mini-deluge out of nothing yesterday evening, and today with an extended rainfall of varying weight but large accumulation. So these photos of yesterday's fine upstanding plants have would today feature bedraggled or mushed flowers with some recumbent stems (some of the plants have double or semi-double flower forms, which are notorious for lax stems)

A Weather Moment

2010-06-27T22:43:00.003-03:00

A strange bike ride today, the closest I've ever come to a triathalon session-- and really, I'm not fond of the genre! Felt more than a bit like Joe Btfsplk (per L'il Abner comic) too.

Following a dreary forenoon and early afternoon, the weather started to clear per the forecast towards 3-ish. A look at the weather radar website around noon showed no new rain advancing within 300 km. So, at closing time I got ready and went out for a 30km ride. Underway about 1630. On the outbound leg, a wee shower barely wetting the road for a few km at about 1645. From the midway turnaround point, an awfully dark band of cloud ahead. 10km from home, started to get wet. Passing shower, thought I. NOT. The rain got heavier and heavier, eventually exceeding the downpour stage and becoming a deluge. My usually very effective sweat band washed my eyes with several days accumulated sweat salts, which had the left eye and sinus still stinging hours later (or maybe a passing car sprayed me with traces of gasoline or oil from the road or it's own leak, since my right eye recovered from the salt quite quickly). Thankfully (?!) it was at least a warm rain, about 17deg C according to my bike computer- okay for 20 minutes but would have become chilling aver a longer distance. And it was "home roads" so not being able to see much of the road didn't matter too much.

By the time I showered (for real, with plumbed water, nice and hot) the sun was breaking through again. Perfect!

Now to the interesting part. I called up the weather radar webpage again and looked at 3 hours of history. No weather returns at 1500, or for awhile afterwards. But then just at 1640 a few light blue spots of "light rain" popped up on the radar over the hills just to the west of me, and quickly bloomed into a large patch about 30km north-south by 50km east-west, with green, yellow and even a bit of red intensity in the central area right over my route!! Just came from nowhere and dumped on ME!!!
So even if I had looked at the weather radar at the last minute before leaving home there would have been no sign of rain anywhere to the west (and that to the east was far away too and going further). Doomed. Just... doomed.

Hen-and-Chicks

2010-06-15T23:01:00.004-03:00

Not your plant of that name, the Sempervirens species.

A couple of mornings ago when headed towards the woods to do some overdue weeding I created a huge upset amongst the local wildlife. Walking by the bark/sawdust pile the morning exploded into a great commotion consisting of a Spruce Grouse hen running noisily across my feet (almost) and about a dozen chicks (I had never seen more than a half dozen in previous years, but then I had never encountered them on open ground before either) going silently the other way and disappearing into the undergrowth. The hen of course did not disappear, but continued with the noisy fake broken-wing flapping thing, along with squawking away at me. When I wouldn't take the bait of following her, she then changed the vocal repertoire to mewing and crying, sounding for all the world like a lost kitten or puppy. Weird. So I allowed myself to be chased out of the area so the family could regather itself and move on; they seem to be fairly mobile and I've never found them in the same place twice in a row-- not that I go looking for them, just that I stumble across them in different places. This lot had been quite a bit deeper in the woods the previous day.

So once they had moved on, I noticed a curious depression about a foot across, in the bark and sawdust, from which all the big chunks of bark and wood scraps had been removed (the picture below). I'm guessing they had been taking a mid-morning nap in the sun. Looking closely, I could see a number of individual smaller depressions in the main one, I suppose where some of the chicks had gone for extra comfort; unfortunately they don't show up all that well in the photo since the sun was close to overhead: but they are there!
A couple of breast feathers got left behind in the rush of departure.

Paeonia peregrina

2010-06-11T22:50:00.004-03:00

One of the later species to bloom here, Paeonia peregrina is variably blood red in colour, ranging from quite dark to brilliant. The first photo was taken on a cloudy afternoon, the second two days later in sunshine.

Foliage is distinctly different from any other species. This species doesn't bllom in my shade test patch, and the stems are a bit floppy (or lax, if you will) in my partially shaded bed; so I recommend it for full sun only, in Nova Scotia. A plant in the Annapolis Valley of the same seed batch bloomed a week to two weeks before mine.

Also in bloom here still are a few plants of P veitchii (most are bloomed out), some early obovata's, a few officinalis, some of the lactiflora hybrids; lactiflora's are starting to colour in bud and very close to opening-- a couple more days of sun and they'll pop.

Hmm, World Cup games, the bike on sunny days-- it will be hard to find time to write posts for awhile...

Seed Surprise

2010-06-01T20:30:00.005-03:00

Several years ago I bought some Paeonia tenuifolia seed, hand-pollinated from the double form (but the pollen of course from the single form), from a European botanist. Two flowered last year in the "ordinary" blood-red single form, but this year one of three buds was looking very fat quite early on and surprised me by being this bright pink; and then as if that wasn't enough, a fully double form as well. Gorgeous, and almost the size of my hand. Floppy-stemmed yes, but I can forgive it that. The two photos are 3 days apart.

The other two buds this year will be red, and from the size probably single. And there are about a half-dozen plants that haven't shown their stuff yet. So there is still hope for a double red, but even if the rest are all single I'm not complaining-- this plant alone has been more than worth the purchase and the wait.

No stamens, but a full set of carpels.

Interestingly, the double red form is said to be a couple of weeks later to bloom than the single form, but this double pink is about exactly in synch with my single reds. It's probably no surprise that it is at its best during the concluding and exciting week of this year's Giro d'Italia bike race!

Looking at some of yesterday's photos, and today's, how can anyone wonder that I love growing peonies from seed?!

Unrelated to the above: Rain today, so no further developments in the Ugly
Duckling department.

Variations on the Theme of P. mlokosewitschii

2010-06-01T20:06:00.000-03:00

A sampling of some new mloko's from this year; some may be hybrids or they may all be natural variation within the species, I just don't know. There are other variations from previous years that I didn't photograph this time around, for a change. And there were several new "ordinary yellow" ones which do not feature in this post.

Nice pink picotee on the petal edges.

Faded past it's prime here, this one was a bit peachy in colouration, more reddish than the "apricot" types.

An "apricot" variant faded and past it's prime by a day or two. The apricot forms generally have a more spicey but sweet fragrance than the yellows, in my limited experience.

Day one of a new seedling of what I call the "Ugly Duckling" colouration: it buds and opens with a drab dusty rose colour, and then as the days go by becomes more and more yellow except for red veins (which may or may not fade completely on the last day). As it reaches its prime the ugly duckling is revealed to be a lovely swan (per the Hans Christian Anderson fairytale), which I find appropriate for the transformation of the flower too...

...So here it is again 3 and a bit days later. Unfortunately I didn't get there with the camera until almost 8pm, so the flower is closed and the light is dim and the colours subdued and blued, but you can see that a transformation is in progress!

Aaaghhh! Everything's Opening at Once

2010-05-23T22:04:00.002-03:00

Peonies, that is.

With the sudden warmth, the garden has been flooded with the fragrance of the Golden Peony, P mlokosewitschii, (no photo today) which is not as sweet as the later lactifloras, different and distinctive but pleasant. P steveniana might be contributing a bit to the overall ambient fragrance of the yard, but it is mostly mloko. And definitely marvelous! I hadn't noticed mloko's fragrance to be so pervasive before-- used to have to get my nose right into it. Maybe all the fresh air from cycling has sharpened my sense of smell. (Or maybe it just takes 20 years to recover from the miasma of fuel, wet paint and dense cigarette smoke which was the atmosphere of HMC Ships back then (I understand they've done away with the ciggies lately, but maybe not))

Paeonia tenuifolia subsp lithophila, a dwarf form of the Fern Leaf Peony. Single flower, and a group of 4 plants.

Two flowers this year on the newly-named Paeonia x steveniana cultivar "Contador's Triple Crown". You can read about it at the link below; but it isn't for sale... Due to the sudden heat wave the highlight rose edging of the petals is overly faded, and a better look is at the linked page. http://plants.chebucto.biz/plants/PeonyContadorsTripleCrown.html

A pale-pink flower on mloko-like foliage. This plant grown from seed labelled as "Paeonia mlokosewitschii/ wittmaniana/ caucasica hybrid"

And a white, or at least dead pale, form of P. steveniana.

More New Openings in the Peony Department

2010-05-19T22:15:00.007-03:00

Paeonia tenuifolia, the Fernleaf Peony, has opened in full sun. The dwarf subspecies in a bed which is a bit shaded in the mornings is not open yet. There are 2 plants in this photo; on the left, a dark red proper species; on the right, the larger plant is probably a hybrid (it has yet to set seed) and has flowers with a more magenta tint.

Paeonia steveniana, Steven's Peony if one must put a common name to it, as open as it will get. A cloudy day today, so the colour is intensified; it is never that intense of a yellow here.

And here it is behind a crowd of Paeonia mascula and some Paeonia caucasica (a subsp of mascula and pretty much identical to my eye.

A few more buds of steveniana, behind a few plants of another mascula close relative, Paeonia kesrouanensis. (More information about this plant, or any other, by looking up earlier posts in the index.)

And unexpectedly, a plant of the Golden Peony, Paeonia mlokosewitschii, a couple of days earlier than expected. And filling the yard with it's fragrance at an intensity I've never noticed before.

Good news for customers, there are about 15 potted plants from seed of this species in bud (will probably open sometime in the next week)-- not all will be yellow-flowered which is why I have to see the flowers before I can sell the plants- at least one looks like it will be magenta (mascula cross), and some may be apricot or very pale yellow, almost white. Can;t wait to see it (but have to!!)

Return of the Natives

2010-05-15T13:29:00.003-03:00

It doesn't take long for the pollinated flowers of Red Maple to start showing the little winged fruits. The stems elongate significantly and contribute a lot of colour by staying red for some time while the wings green up a bit earlier. Incidently, the tree whose flowering I photographed earlier has no seed set at all; it was the first nearby red maple tree in flower (maybe because of proximity to the house?) and the flowers were open when we had our last (hopefully) snowfall of the spring, accompanied by over 45 hours of very cold temperatures. I have to guess that killed the open flowers although I couldn't tell at the time, while the ones still in bud survived to open later and produce seed.

Red elderberry, flowers and leaves pretty much fully deployed. A very open shrub, even in full sun which this one isn't. Showy enough, and easy care since I don't even have to plant it.

Speaking of native things, this year's black fly thermometer is out of calibration. Usually they only show up when the temperature is at or above 13C (by my thermometer in shade). But we've been seeing that so seldom that they're starting to buzz around at about 10C. The wind has seldom been still this year so they only manage to bug me during occasional lulls, which is good for me in the garden but a drag (one way) on the bike.

The Race for Third

2010-05-13T13:18:00.003-03:00

Hard on the heels of P. tomentosa comes P. mascula, the Male Peony. Some years there is no overlap, but this year there is. Which means getting out the paintbrush to pollinate the yellow Woolly one before the bees mess up the genetics. However, down in the shady woodland bed tomentosa rules alone with mascula not even showing colour yet (that is, not yet to the stage of the background bud in this photo). This is a late afternoon photo, with the flower just closing up as clouds move in.

Many others of the round-lobed leaf species are showing colour in their buds and are not too far from bursting forth either.

Variation in the Woolly Peony

2010-05-10T19:52:00.003-03:00

A plant of Paeonia tomentosa is showing reddish tinges in foliage and in the petals. The foliage tint was more obvious and very attractive earlier in the spring, but even now is noticeable. The buds showed a bit too, but I was curious to see if that remained once the flowers opened. The second photo shows two plants together, for contrast.

Peony Season Officially Comences here (meanwhile in Edmonton...)

2010-05-05T20:25:00.009-03:00

Yesterday afternoon (a gorgeous sunny cycling +23C afternoon!) the buds were still tight and showing no more colour than in the photos of 2 days ago. This morning, P. tomentosa the Woolly Peony was a yellow ball but not yet open, but by mid-afternoon the sun (although cooler than yesterday) had worked its magic and the first flower was open. 10 days ahead of 2006, 21 days ahead of 2007 (that's according to the previous entries in this blog).

In other good news on the tomentosa front, seedlings of this species are up so in a year or two I will once again be selling this species.

Meanwhile, P. mairei also opened after having had nicely coloured buds for several days (20 days ahead of 2007). However, we can see in the photos that these have some frost damage from the last snow day, more from the temperatures than from the snow itself; this probably retarded the opening of the buds by a few days. The frost damage is apparent in asymetrical petal shapes and in the outer rings of dead anthers (more noticable in the semi-open flower). Stigmas are very small too, as can be seen vaguely in comparison with the 2007 photo.

Glaucidium palmatum also opened over the weekend; this is considered by some botanists to be a member of the Peony family, although a different Genus. Horticulturally I find few similarities, but my analysis is only skin deep.

Meanwhile my sister in Edmonton posted photos of yesterday's wet snowfall which looks close to 5" deep... Strangely, if I recall correctly (and there's no guarantee of that!) Edmonton was having about +20C temperatures in sun during the last wintery blast here.

Spring Progresses

2010-05-03T21:02:00.008-03:00

Indian Pear, Prunus pennsylvanica, a small native tree which usually paints the roadsides red and white with its' new leafs and flowers for a few weeks starting on the Victoria Day Weekend. But two weeks early this year. Its' flowering also usually marks the beginning of blackfly season, and does so again this year. (But I expect a short and sparse blackfly season again this year.) Can be grown as a shrub; it takes well to pruning (an unintended pun on the Genus...)

Flowers of the Cornelian Cherry, Cornus mas. This is the first time I have seen this shrub flower for me, although it is a bit hidden and I somewhat gave up on it years ago so haven't been looking attentively; for a first flowering it has quite a mass (again a naming pun!!) of flowers on it, most of them out of the frame of th camera. Planted in about 1991 or 2, one of the first tissue culture plants I bought through the Rhododendron Society. It's been a bit of a wait.

Red Barrenwort, Epimedium x rubrum, a fine slow-growing groundcover sub-shrub. Most years there is some old foliage which survives to hide the new growth and flowers a bit, but this year for some reason nothing. Maybe eaten by rabbits or something.

Maire's Peony, Paeonia mairei, the earliest to flower for me, but these are still in small pots near the front of a pot farm so maybe they would be later if they were in the ground. Or maybe not. A fairly small plant, but I no longer attribute that to them being in pots, as they are well-rooted through the drainage holes into the soil beneath.

Woolly Peony, Paeonia tomentosa, buds just starting to show some colour. Before P. mairei showed itself a couple of years ago, this was always the first peony to bloom, with no overlapping species. It's one of the lesser-known yellows from the Caucasus.

More Snow!?! Yep, Madison Snow

2010-04-22T21:29:00.004-03:00

The small-leafed Rhododendron cultivar "Madison Snow", a selection of Rhododendron dauricum forma alba. Always the first Rhodo to flower here. Planted in 1990 as a 2 in or 5 cm tissue culture sprig, it is now about 6 ft or 2 m high and wide. Usually flowers around the beginning of May. And a close-up of the flower.

And here, the second day of flowers on "April Rose", a double-flowered R. dauricum hybrid which usually doesn't open until the first week of May. Smaller than the above, but the same age. She has two sisters around here, a larger-flowered "April Mist" with lavender blooms, and a double white "April Gem".

Spring Reversions

2010-04-19T10:55:00.012-03:00

13 April Some peonies are quite far along; these are in the uppermost species bed near the house/walkway. Even the common garden peonies, latest to emerge, are showing their red asparagus-like shoots just about everywhere on the property. The particularily tall plant here (2nd pic) is a Paeonia mascula, nice marble-size buds already showing.

16 April An inch or 3 cm of snow last night, temperature down to -4C. The more precocious shoots (or taller ones if you will) are bent over quite far. Will they recover to full upright?

17 April Sunny and warm (8C-ish) so the snow didn't last long. Question answered, plant seems undeterred.

Last night (18/19April): more of the white stuff, but temperatures just at 0C. At 11a.m. I measured the snow depth at 4 inches or 10 cm with some melting in progress so it might have been an inch or a couple of cm deeper when it fell.

Rhododendron "April Rose", which might actually open in April this year!! Took this pic only because it shows fairly well the amount of snow still hanging around at 11 a.m.

Here, the reason for black or almost black Hellebores! (an orientalis hybrid). The "pitting" in the snow is from clumbs of it falling off the maple tree branches above as it melts.

Red Elderberry, Sambucus pubens, deploying buds seasonally decorated... but most of the decoration has melted off already.

And a collection of species peonies, the next 3 pics. I admit I was expecting to find the tall mascula from above folded flat and was surprised to find that it like most of the less advanced shoots had managed to shed most of the snow and were standing mostly upright. So much for a certain individual's (not me) trite and dysfunctional motto of "No expectations, no disappointments"

Red maple trees still flowering; if the seed set is reduced by these cold snaps the squirrels will be unhappy (and nursery customers less likely to get a free red maple shoot in every potted plant purchase)

More double Hellebores, and Spring continues

2010-04-12T20:15:00.004-03:00

A couple more of the new double-flowered hybrid Helleborus seedlings. These two are quite similar but not the same plant. I'll be interested to see how the doubles progress with fertilization, since it looks like the inner row of petals are mutated actual petals (the outer set are sepals); the actual petals on single Hellebores being some inconspicuous little things, usual but not always green and they fall off once the flower is pollinated while the sepals remain and continue to provide a show for a lot longer.

Since we're on Hellebores, this is the group of Helleborus niger shown after the frost day, now in the midst of starting to change colour. Fairly spectacular, I think.

And the first Narcissus types around here.

Night Callers (or, Leo and the Night Visitor (with apologies to Amahl and Menotti))

2010-04-10T16:14:00.009-03:00

Last night just as I was thinking of heading for bed, a strange sound penetrated the noise of tv, gentle rain and dripping eaves and whatever extra audio was going on in my head. Listening more closely, didn't sound like a leak in roof or plumbing, and had a bit too much volume to it to be one of the mice that frequent the basement willy-nilly between trappings. Fervently hoping it wasn't a rat or a squirrel (one occupant of each variety over the years (that I knew of!)) I headed for the basement to see what I could hear (answering a Call of Nature, so to speak). Passing the front door, I heard the noise again and it seemed to be coming from outside. Porch light on-- Ah yes, nature calling indeed: a porcupine was on the front step (more of a porchupine, I suppose...), apparently-presumably looking for a place to stash some extra quills for later use and very intrigued with the possibilities of the screen door (and why not-- at one quill per hole that would hold quite an armoury of spares). It was unfazed and even unphased by the porch light coming on, and equally unimpressed by me rapping on the door. Fetched the camera and dazzled it with the flash a few times (useless results photographically, I got better pics without the flash) with little effect on the animal, except that he decided to investigate the other side of the screendoor (it was roped open, with about a 15" space between it and the wall of the adjoining "wing"). So I went out onto the porch and asked it to wander off, which eventually it did. Slow, stately, and unimpressed. Mind you, the whole time I was out there it was gnashing it's teeth at me; nothing vocal, just a continuous clicking of teeth at a couple of clicks per second; I suppose it could have been clicking quills, but it sounded more solid and regular to me. And refusing to tell me just what was so fascinating about that screen door!

The photos are not great, the light was rather dim, but here it is first investigating the screen and then taking it's stately departure. Viewers are asked to ignore the banana skins up against the house (yes, those distracting yellow shapes), just as the porcupine did.

Not exactly the stuff of grand opera, but yet passable Friday night excitement out here in the sticks of NS...

More Spring Things including a National Symbol in a form we don't usually see

2010-04-07T16:36:00.014-03:00

Acer rubrum, the Red Maple, flowers high in the canopy (and for convenience about 8ft away outside one of my upper windows). Sweetly fragrant, and a spring fragrance which was a mystery to me for years until I was lucky enough to find a branch down at nose level (that branch since removed, since it was also at eye level!). The close-up is from back then, 26 April 2000. Anthers are open on most of the flowers in the first photo, but not yet open in the close-up, hence the lack of yellow. However there is some natural variation in the colour of the flower from one tree to the next. Sugar maple, Acer saccharum, blooms somewhat later, with smaller less showy yellow-green flowers-- and no scent that I've located yet.

Some other Spring things:

Chionodoxa sardensis, Glory of the Snow, the brightest blue I've seen in a flower except for a few gentians. A different species of this is more commonly grown, has larger flowers but not as blue. Every spring I am amazed that this little thing is still alive (and increasing!) since it is in an area replete with weeds.

Hepatica nobilis. Used to be a clump with dozens of flowers but the darn deer are fond of it and browse it to the ground, usually when in full flower. So it loses a lot of energy each year regrowing a few leaves to replace those that went into the deer salad.

Not finished with the Hellebores yet:

A double form of Helleborus orientalis hybrid, grown from seed obtained from I don't know where anymore, it has taken a few years to see the first flowers on some of the plants; it looks like about half will be doubles but the others aren't yet in a state useful to photograph yet.

Another hybrid, this one showing that the cold snap caused damage to the flower despite it being in a tight bud still at that point-- the anthers are all dead (the little cone of brown things in the middle)

And here, Helleborus niger, the Christmas Rose, already pollinated so the sepals are turning from white to a pinkish shade of tan (on other plants they go to green or something between or ...). There is something in the leaf litter that likes to eat the sepals of this species, but it leaves the orientalis and hybrids alone. Might be just because the flowers of niger are so low and touching the litter whereas the others have longer stems and are above all that.

And one final spring thing for today, a few colour forms from seed, of Corydalis solida, a small but showy spring ephemeral that grows from a bulb and is quite adaptable as far as sun and shade are concerned.

Spring Progresses

2010-04-04T19:14:00.012-03:00

Saturday, 20C; today 23C!! Stuff is just jumping out of the ground and/or into bloom. Many hours on the bike this weekend too, despite back and butt problems which are just about conquered (I hope)...

Daphne mezureum shown here has added it's scents to that of the red maple flowers (no photo)

And the bees are out in force, this bumblebee condescended to sit still for a photo. More honey bees this year than the past several too.

And the white form, Daphne mezereum forma alba. A sweeter more clovelike scent than the pinkish type.

Here, a worm's eye view of some snowdrops. Not the best focus, but they are interesting flowers up close. Canopied by Rhododendron fortunei.

Peony noses of all types are up suddenly just about everywhere that I've put them. This is the furthest along as usual, Paeonia mairei. Still in small pots but rooted into the former lawn below; Every spring I swear to get them planted out in fall and every fall manage not to...

Surprisingly, to me, the tree peony Paeonia rockii is also already breaking out of it's buds, rather earlier relative to the rest of the peonies than what I am used to seeing.

Muscari species (a Grape Hyacinth) sort of in bloom, it's sometimes hard to tell when they open. I've lost track of the name of this one, I think it might be something to do with Armenia but not sure anymore. It seeds around like none of the other species that I have tried, a great bonus.

A Thlaspi species, not long-lived but seeding about in the sand bed. These are little alpines which have been with me for over a decade now.

The main crocus show. The Thlaspi is in this bed, far back on the right but I don't think you'll be able to see it in the photo.

An addendum to the previous post on frost damage amongst the Hellebores. This poor ugly blasted shoot may also have been the victim of that frost, but it was fairly well-covered with dry bracken leaves so I hadn't seen it before the cold snap. It is also possible, particularily since this plant was moved into the ground from a pot late last summer, that this was unseasonally last autumn's growth and the frost damage is the more normal result of the entire winter.

Frost damage after a disgustingly cold snap

2010-04-01T20:15:00.008-03:00

Friday 26 March- overnight low here -8.5C, Saturday high -3C, Saturday overnight low -12C. (Schizophrenic weekends; the forecast for the valleyfor the coming weekend approaches +20C!) Then daily highs above freezing and generally warming temperatures. Hellebores showed some damage in places depending on plant and location; mostly it was brown patches on open sepals, or stems that turned a bit translucent and folded over. Were the reproductive parts of the flowers damaged? I don't know- the flowers face downwards, so perhaps enough warmth was trapped in the parasol to keep the ovaries from freezing, if not the anthers. Following photos show some of the damaged and undamaged flowers.

Frost damage on Helleborus orientalis/caucasica, above. The first 2 photos are of the flowers featured a couple of days ago, the third is the plant recently shown with snow on it.

A group of potted Helleborus niger; those on the south side of the group (first photo) were seriously frost-damaged, others on the north side of the group (second photo), not.

Helleborus orientalis hybrid, the plant near the warmest foundation. Some flowers affected, some not. Predictably, those closest to the foundation are still fine.

And some daffodil (Narcissus) stems likewise folded following frost damage:

Broken Thermometers

2010-03-26T13:57:00.003-03:00

Back to winter here:

Snowdrops dropped by snow...

Helleborus niger, white flowers well camouflaged.

And the dark red Helleborus orientalis hybrid, can't you tell?

Forecast low for tonight -8C, with a high tomorrow of -7C??!!! Meanwhile +19Cin Firenze (northern Italy) just now.

Wild Thing

2010-03-25T13:40:00.002-03:00

A rare walk in the woods today (on foot, not even on a bike!). Days like this I miss not having a dog anymore...

As suspected (17 Mar) Speckled alder (Alnus rugosa ) is in bloom. 2 photos of it. The long showy catkin is the male flower, the small reddish catkins above the males are the female flowers.
(above the males... hmmm.) I have been calling this "black alder" for years, but in looking up the botanical name discovered I've been wrong even if consistant; the black alder is a tree, imported from Europe; speckled alder is a shrub rarely much over 12 ft or 4 metres tall. And, yes, the bark is heavily speckled, good clue, although also very dark blackish (edit 1April: what was I thinking of when I wrote that? it's not black, rather a mid-greyish with brown tinting!!) in the major part between the specks.

More of the Hellebore

2010-03-24T13:07:00.004-03:00

The first two are blooming for the first time; they are either two stems of the same plant or two plants of the same seed batch sharing a pot, I can't tell right now! The seed was labelled as Helleborus orientalis/caucasicus. Not quite white, more cream to pale yellow. From the first photo I have to assume it has been in hidden bloom for quite awhile now, since the pollen is all gone. I admit I hadn't really been looking very hard.

Helleborus niger in full flower, the same plant as 17 March.

A nice deep red, almost black Helleborus orientalis hybrid, flowers somewhat darker than the camera saw.

Spring flowers already?

2010-03-17T21:35:00.001-03:00

First, yes it's true I am back at posting to this blog again! Can't promise that I'll keep it up regularily or long, but we'll see as we go along. The multi-year gap involved here was spent gettin my head together on nursery and personal issues and managing to mesh gardening with cycling (still not a done deal, but getting there).

So.

A very early spring, a good two weeks earlier than usual. Nor was it a very cold winter either, overnight lows rarely going below -15C. More, there has been a good run of sunny days to break the frosts, whereas we have been more used to cloudy or wet springs (or at least that seems to be the case from looking back at my cycling records!!)

Two days ago crocus leaves were starting to show in a couple of sand beds, and Helleborus niger buds were swelling and semi-open. Today, crocus flowers are in bloom and the Hellebore is noticeably open. Other Hellebores are starting to show flower stems in bud erecting themselves above the ground. Probably black alder bushes are in bloom too, but they are not showy and I haven't walked into their area very often since I ran out of dogs.

A pair of yellow-flowered Hellebore plants just showing through the snow down the hill from the house. The first is just a bud at ground level right now, the second further along. One of them is a species and the other is a hybrid, but their labels are still under the snow so I can't be more specific now.

Snowdrops, budded but not quite open. These are in deep shade beneath a large Rhododendron.

A large Helleborus orientalis (Lenten Rose) hybrid quite far along because it is situated not far from a basement wall close to my wood stove, so the ground there is the warmest in the yard.

A well- and long-established bunch of crocus in the root zone of a Spiraea bush (hence all the branches laying amongst them). These probably first opened a couple of days ago but I didn't notice them until today. How is that possible?!
These are no particular species or cultivar, just a generic crocus patch which started as a half-dozen corms sometime in the early 80's. I suspect there has been some self-seeding in addition to the corm offsets.

A couple of species or botanical crocuses in a sandbed. The yellow ones are pretty obvious, the pale lilac-coloured ones are shyly hiding beneath the leafs of a yucca.

Helleborus niger, the Christmas Rose. This in a bed along an unheated section of the basement and beside the sidewalk. Sunny at this time of year, shady once the trees leaf out. I planted a pair of these close together, but the other one in the pair blooms in November, and yes, still showed some remnants of white sepals as Christmas approached. These are not as vigorous for me as H. orientalis and its hybrids.

Autumn is about coloured leaves-- but the best ones aren't necessarily in trees!

2008-10-25T19:56:00.006-03:00

Wow, it's been awhile since I posted anything here; it was one of those summers of whims and lack of get-to-it-ness.

Anyways, one frosty morn last week, while walking the dog, I was treated to a frost display that was fantastic. Of course, no camera, and by the time I could have gone back for it the frost would have been gone: sun was about to touch the plants. But this morning conditions aligned just right again, and this time I did take the camera, and so got these photos of Potentilla repens frost-touched and autumn-coloured.

This plant is a weedy thing around here, forming vast carpets by runnering (long ones), by seeding, by producing corms: programmed for survival. Flowers are dainty, mid-yellow, but sparse so it doesn't really make it as a garden groundcover. On a few open patches of the not-so-old logging road behind me where I walk with Gershwin (the dog) are a few large patches of it. The patches which are shaded from morning sun by the trees are nicely coloured in fall, but it takes a touch of the frost-brush to show them at their best. So here, unprocessed except for size reduction, are several pics of a lowly weed in stunning display.

In bloom 21/23 April

2008-04-23T22:13:00.008-03:00

Helleborus hybrid, the first one I managed not to kill.

Oh wow, suddenly a hint of yellow where none should have been: Helleborus orientalis/ caucasicus. From wild-collected seed obtained from British Botanist Will McLewin.

And this beauty, also so unexpected. Grown from seed obtained from a seed exchange, I knew it was from a yellow-flowered parent but wasn't really expecting a yellow flower due to the promiscuity of Hellebores. In bud, and for the first day when opened, it was more pale green than yellow; a nice surprise the second morning. Yellow intensifying for a few days now.

Grown from seed from deep red to black parents. Very very dark in bud.

Grown from seed from Apricot/ Peach flowered parents. Three are flowering now, and they are probably not up to their mom's quality. They're all quickly going towards green. Obviously one needs to grow a lot of seedlings of good parentage to get a really special plant in that colour shade.

Daphne mezereum, February Daphne, a very fragrant flowering shrub.

A small seedling of a white form. The fragrance is more lemony than the normal form.

Primula denticulata, the Drumstick Primula.

The crocuses in the sunny sand bed are about done (but some in lawns with a bit of shade are still going strong)

Chionodoxa sardensis, a species of Glory in the Snow. A superb blue (even under the shadow of my head)

Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara), a very pretty and bright weed. Unfortunately the leafs, which emerge later, a large and smothering.

Hepatica nobilis, a blue strain.

Hepatica acutiloba, a native of eastern Canada. There is some colour variation in this species, into pale pink and pale violet-blue.

Priorities...

2008-04-09T21:14:00.004-03:00

Sunny and warm today (an accidental almost summer) (not to worry, the weather is forecast to return to cold and drear by the weekend). An hour of yardwork before lunch, 4 hours on the bike after lunch. Warm enough for bare legs (Yesss!) although my ride to Avonport on the Minas Basin managed to find cold air wafting off the water. Last year it wasn't until the end of May that I tackled a similar distance, and at a slightly slower speed. The only question now is, will I "recover" overnight?

Thanks to some "farmer Joe" near Avonport moving a heap of fresh manure from his barn on one side of the road to his other barn on the other side of the road -- too short a distance to bother with a wagon, so he just pushed it across with the bucket of a front-end loader -- I managed to get a bit shit-faced without the pleasure of a decent bottle of wine. Fortunately it was the top of a hill rather than the bottom of a descent so it was possible to manoevre so as to avoid the lumpy bits... all in all, a bit dodgy. No photos, but Gershwin (the dog) was very interested in the smell of the tires and undersides of the frame when I got home.

Everywhere I rode there was the sound of badly-adjusted derailleurs (chain scraping cogs) but it wasn't me-- it was an army of homeowners raking the winter's gravel off their lawns and back onto the road shoulders where it belonged.

2008 postings at last: Signs of Spring

2008-04-06T20:29:00.003-03:00

Yes folks, despite the stuff the Weather Channel is waffling about, Signs of Spring are in the air. Primarily, I passed an outdoor flea market today while out on the bike...

Crocuses showed up with today's sun.

Helleborus niger, up against the house.

Snowdrops almost ready to open.

Bike and snowshoes together... says a bit about the state of the trails in the woods here.

Paeonia lactiflora

2007-06-28T21:42:00.000-03:00

The grand precursor of the garden peony is still growing in the wilds of Mongolia and Northern China, and their seeds are collected by a few dedicated botanists from time to time. I obtained about 10 seedlings from collections made by J Halda in the Altai mountains; these 2 are the first to bloom this year. They're in a sunnier bed than the datum display bed. I'm not sure why hybridizers insist on trying to improve on nature... Nice strong stems, heady fragrance, clean simple lines-- a fine way to start the end of peony season, these are my last species to flower.

Delicate but tough: Paeonia obovata

2007-06-25T20:55:00.000-03:00

A woodland peony from Siberia, this species has ridiculously thin stems, and yet they are strong enough to stay upright all winter here, despite wet snow that levels most other peony stems. The relatively small flowers of the seedlots I've grown remain globular, the one in the photo is as open as they get (until the petals fall off).

Here is a group in the display bed.

One of my plants in the woods had the crown of the root exposed by erosion last winter. In spring it looked like it had had the biscuit, but eventually a single stalk emerged from it. I've since covered it over with more soil and mulch. (photo from 6 May)

I was also surprised earlier this year by the flowering of two plants of Paeonia obovata var. alba which were growing in 1-gallon pots (that's supposed to be a transition size for one year only but the transplanting "schedule" went all awry the past few years and a lot of plants are still languishing in the small pots). Due to their location in pot farms they warmed and developed earlier than the plants in the display bed, blooming a few weeks ago. To avoid confusion I decided not to post the photos until the rest of obovata were in flower.

The flowers are from different seed sources (both are from plants in cultivation, the first from a seed exchange, the second one generation removed from a wild collection); note the difference in the colour of the stamens in the second one. Flowers in both of these are larger and open more widely (almost flat) than the rest of the obovata I've grown.

More of Paeonia peregrina

2007-06-22T20:35:00.000-03:00

I am delighting in this species since it is the first year that it has amounted to much for me. Flowers and stems may still not be full size, but they are much larger than last year.

Two are now in bloom, one being a bit darker than the other (this is the one shown two days ago). Some variation in petal shape and in

leaf segmentation and shape between them too.

Reds!

2007-06-20T21:42:00.000-03:00

Today Paeonia peregrina stopped teasing me with its' huge buds and started to open. (just in time for a rain storm). Known as the Crimson-Flowered Peony, and sometimes as the "single red peony of Constantinople", this species is much used in hybridizing. It's native to southern Europe from southern Italy to western Turkey at elevations up to 1200m. Although this doesn't sound promising for extreme cold hardiness, but I learned this spring that it has grown well for many years at the Devonian Botanical Garden near Edmonton, Alberta: Zone 3 territory. However, although in its native range it grows in scrub and in woods, I have found that here in Nova Scotia it is unhappy in my woods, and less vigorous than most of the other species in the partially shaded display beds, but it has done best in the open field.

The first of my few tree peonies to bloom (and the only type with buds this year), the small but dark red flower of Paeonia delavayi. A shy critter which keeps its face pointing to the ground. All the literature that I had consulted indicated that this species would be unlikely to bloom here, and not much more likely to survive, period. But it has surprised me with a high survival rate and with at least one plant (of the several in pots) producing flowers each of the last 3 years. The flower is smaller than it appears in the photo; the golf ball ended up a few inches below the flower because I had to hold the stem upright and forgot about positioning the ball properly...

The "Ugly Duckling"

2007-06-15T20:31:00.000-03:00

Remember the Hans Christian Anderson tale of the Ugly Duckling, in which a cygnet finds itself somehow in with a brood of ducklings, all of whom mock the cygnet for being ugly? And then one day the cygnet grows up to be a beautiful swan, and all the ducks envy it.

Well, I have a plant from a batch of P mlokosewitschii seed which performs a similar feat each year.

Here it is in bud. A rather humdrum, grubby colour showing. (Ignore the flash of pink on the right margin!)

And here it is the next day, just opened.

Same day, side view of both the flowers the plant had this year. The one on the right is a bit further along than the other. In the background, some normal mlokosewitschii's.

Day 3, and we're starting to see something a bit more exciting developing.

Day 3 still, side view.

And a close-up of the right-hand flower.

Then the weather intervened in the form of a heavy rain and wind-storm overnight. Wretched timing...

So this is day 4, and the right-hand flower has been destroyed.

But the weather was not done yet, and overnight another storm or the same one backtracking (which happens in NS more than one would care to imagine) attacked my peonies.

Day 5, the ragged remnants.

Usually I can expect a flower to last at least a week before it falls apart... Heck, the pollen sacks hadn't even opened yet!
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I presume this plant to be a hybrid due to the fading red tones, but for all I know it might also be a natural variation within the species. Foliage is purely mlokosewitschii in form. The seedlot from which it (and the proper yellow one behind it) was grown was collected from my own plant, open-pollinated in my garden with the possibility of P anomala or P veitchii pollen getting involved.

From the Arctic circle to Northern China

2007-06-10T21:22:00.001-03:00

A pair of closely related species which have been open for up to 5 days in various locations (and not yet at all in others) opened today in the datum bed.

The first is Paeonia anomala (this is subsp intermedia which has wider leaf segments), the Anomalous Peony, probably the most cold-hardy of the species as it's natural range runs the entire length of the Ural mountains of Siberia and it has been naturalized into the Kola Penninsula since about the end of the 1800's. Easy to grow in normal garden conditions and soils, it is adaptable from full sun to the dappled shade of woodland gardens in mixed cover. Indeed its natural environment is in forests and scrub. The species has some variability in the fineness of the leaf segments, and in the colour of the flowers (there is a white-flowered form which I am anxiously awaiting the flowering of); the form most often seen in book photos is narrowly segmented and has dark magenta flowers.

Second is Paeonia veitchii, Veitch's Peony, of late classified as a subspecies of anomala by some Chinese botanists. It has some overlap with the southern end of the range of anomala and extends further south. Flower colour is variable, most of mine are either slightly paler pink than this plant or a darker pink, but from later seed batches I have been getting plants ranging to dark red. And of course there is a white form which I try to keep the bees from diluting. Leaf variations include shiny smooth leafs to "matte finishes" and veining with an "etched in" appearance. The plant in the photo is from seed from a compact form, but the plant seems about full size in garden conditions.

Veitchii is one of the few species which has more than one flower bud per stem (it has a terminal bud and 1 to 3 pairs of side-buds). Those who seek large flowers can direct more growth energy to the terminal bud by early removal of the sidebuds, whereas those who leave the sidebuds on get to enjoy a succession of smaller flowers over a couple of weeks, extending the bloom period of the plant. This species is equally easy and adaptable as anomala.

These 2 (or 1 if you prefer) were the first species for which I obtained seed and had success with. They used to be my earliest peonies to flower... How naive I was, then. (okay, still am but that's a different story)

More peonies of course

2007-06-08T21:05:00.000-03:00

Paeonia tenuifolia ssp lithophila, a dwarf form of Fern-leaf Peony; today the sun was out so the flowers opened fully.

Same plant but on a cloudy day; this is meant just to give an idea of plant form. Windy and rainy weather a few days ago have twisted the stems a bit, and with the leafs fully out on the overhanging tree branches these are somewhat more shaded than they would like.
Flower of a seedling of tenuifolia proper, seed from a J Halda collection near Vidin, Bulgaria.

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Paeonia mlokosewitschii, the Golden Peony, opened today in the datum beds although it has been open for a few days already in another bed. This is the palest yellow any of my mloko's have shown as, and is growing in the woodland bed.

From the same seed lot and in the datum bed, a couple of apparent hybrids of mloko. The buds were photographed yesterday, and the opening flower this morning.

I wrote "apparent hybrids" because to the best of my knowledge plants from wild-collected seed do not show these shades of colour, but they are not uncommon in plants grown from garden-origin seed, where cross-pollination with other species is possible.

Although unusual (but perhaps not uncommon among mloko hybrids) and interesting the colour is not exactly the cleanest and I was getting myself set to sell this plant off this year. But the fragrance!! oh my, has convinced me to keep it around: a strong scent of allspice and orange. Strange, didn't notice any scent to it last year.
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This just opened, Paeonia officinalis ssp villosa. Apothecarie's Peony. Similar in flower to P mollis, but taller and with different foliage and seed shape and etc.

And here a closeup of the flower of the Caucasus Peony, P. caucasica.

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Final pic today, the carpels of P steveniana just after the rest of the flower parts have been shed. Still an interesting show with the red pistols... Totally hairless, which is where the synonym P wittmaniana forma nudicarpa came from. If I'd been thinking I would have a pic of P. tomentosa's woolly carpels for comparison.

A couple of green flowers, and one to be green about

2007-06-07T20:54:00.001-03:00

Green flowers were all the rage a few years ago. I don't know if they still are, but as usual I lag the trends when I'm not way ahead of leading them...

Arisaema amurense, one of the oriental relatives of our native Jack-in-the-Pulpit; the oriental ones usually go by the common name of Cobra Lilies. Clean, simple lines. (and apparently unable to decide how many leaflets make up a leaf)

Better known, the Stinking Hellebore Helleborus foetidus. Well, it doesn't stink noticeably to me, but maybe a field full of them would? The first photo is of a new flower which has not yet been pollinated.

The second is of a couple of older flowers which were pollinated a while back; note the ovaries in the middle and the absence of pollen and anthers, which have fallen off.

The third photo shows flowers in both stages, side view. The apparent petals are actually sepals, the actual petals of the flower are small things which fall out of the flower when the anthers go.

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The Rhododendron hybrid cultivar 'Vinecrest'. In its parentage are R. fortunei which is a large tree-forming species, and an early-blooming small-leaf dwarf type from which the yellow flowers come. Fragrant too, with gorgeous constantly changing hues of salmoney-apricot (not a lunch recipe! although maybe... hmmm, I wonder...) buds seeen at the bottom of the photo, to fragrant soft yellow blooms. It is the earliest of the my large-leaf Rhodos to flower by a long shot, and gets its size from the tree side of the parentage. Definitely worth seeking out.

more from the wittmaniana group

2007-06-06T11:46:00.000-03:00

Today saw the first flower of the year on Paeonia macrophylla, the Largeleaf Peony. Classified by some botanists as Paeonia wittmanniana var macrophylla, it is similar to P steveniana (which some classify as Paeonia wittmanniana var nudicarpa). My plants have similar but paler flowers and distinctly larger leafs with a more substantial texture to them.

For a comparison, here is a pic of the leaf of my Paeonia steveniana:

More new openings

2007-06-06T11:31:00.000-03:00

Paeonia mollis, a "pseudospecies". It is apparently no longer to be found in the wild, but has perpetuated in gardens, coming true from seed. A smaller plant, only knee-high, with soft-textured attractive leafs. The seeds are noticeably different from all other peony species.

And here the first of my various Paeonia officinalis plants to open, ssp banatica.

And Paeonia triternata with it's lovely 2-tone pink flowers and the excellent undulate blue-green waxy foliage. Neither flower nor foliage are apparently consistently unique across variablity of the species, so apparently the population my seeds were collected from is a more worthwhile form.

Expectations unmet

2007-06-05T11:21:00.000-03:00

The plant of Paeonia steveniana which last year bore a flower with a fine red line around the rim, has now opened. Whether due to the move or the new location or just the maturing of the plant, the red rim is disappointingly missing this year, although there is a bit of reddish veining to the petals which gives the flower a bit of a tawny tinge. Maybe next year, once it is re-established...

And here, a group of 4 steveniana in the display bed.

Also on the theme of unmet expectations (aka don't count your peony buds until they open), the single bud of Paeonia emodi has aborted and will not open this year.

A few more peony first blooms of the year

2007-06-05T11:08:00.000-03:00

Paeonia caucasica, the Caucasus Peony (although there are many other species from the Caucasus)

Paeonia tenuifolia ssp lithophila, dwarf form of the Fern-leaf Peony. Flowers close up when the sun isn't on them, but in sun are wide open.

Paeonia kesrouanensis, very similar to Paeonia mascula. The species is from Asia Minor (Turkey to Syria); my plants are grown from seed collected from plants in cultivation and so may not be true to the species.

A group of 4 kesrouanensis; some steveniana behind them.

A few late noses and shoots, and another first flower

2007-06-03T19:44:00.001-03:00

Paeonia humilis, also classified as a dwarf subspecies humilis of the Apothecarie's Peony Paeonia officinalis, is just coming up in the display bed next to the Fern-leaf peony. But it was just transplanted here last fall from the open field, so it may normally be earlier.

And also in the display, a.k.a. datum, beds the Siberian Paeonia obovata is just now starting to shoot. It looks decidedly weird surrounded by 2-ft tall peonies in full leaf and ready to flower! The shoot on the right already has a small flower bud sitting on it.
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Meanwhile beside P. mascula the somewhat similar Paeonia ruprechtiana has opened today.

This species ranges from SE Europe to the Caucasus. My plants are from seed reportedly (3rd hand) wild collected in the SW of the Republic of Georgia (Not Georgia USA, but over in the Caucasus region.) Its' natural environment is woodlands and mountainsides in the subalpine zone and lower. Here it is equally vigorous in part shade as in my woods; I don't have any in the open field.

I'm using the name on the label the seed arrived with. Distinctions between some of these very similar species and subsp are often beyond my ability effectively to apply the botanical descriptions of the books to the actual plant sitting in front of me.

A busy day in the sun by the peonies

2007-06-02T21:10:00.001-03:00

A sCycling Scaturday for me, riding into the Annapolis Valley (but avoiding the Apple Blossom Festival events) where it was strangely cooler than at home due to a northish breeze off the Bay of Fundy. Took a few pics of the morning beauties before I left, and found a whole palate-able tribe of colour on return.

First a few closeups of Paeonia mascula, the Male Peony, in a few colour variants. Of note, not much bee activity and so the older flowers (not photographed) have a heavy sprinkling of pollen on their lower petals-- usually the bees cart this stuff off to their hives. The first mascula is typical of the average of my plants. Second is the pale variant whose bud was shown yesterday; a superbly interesting centre, with the yellow anthers forming a nearly perfect sphere. The third is a slightly darker colour than the first.

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Yesterday a bud of Paeonia steveniana, Stevens' Peony, sneaked into the frame of a photo. By this morning the bud had swelled significantly, so I took a photo of it, expecting it to probably be in flower by the time I got back. As you can see, it was (a bit of a green tint to the thumbnail, as can be seen on the golfball, but the full-size image is pretty close to correct). More to follow soon, but this is the forerunner. Lots of insect activity inside there! Also in the evening, took a pic of an interesting variant of steveniana which popped up in my seed lot, having a red rim on the petals (or at least it did last year in the field. It is now in one of the home beds where I can keep an eye on it and appreciate it properly!)

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Closely related to mascula but from a different region, Paeonia kesrouanensis opened a few buds while I was away.

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And in a surprise move, one plant of Paeonia mlokosewitschii, the Golden Peony, burst into bloom today (every bud but one!); again a green tinge to the thumbnail but not to the full-size image. This is in a different bed from the main display group (datum group); the datum plants of this species are not yet in bloom. This plant is also one with green foliage instead of the blue-green with purple stems that my other mature plant has.

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Finally, a (probable hybrid of) Fern-leaf Peony, Paeonia tenuifolia, opened today as well. This too is in a non-datum bed. (The thing about non-datum beds is that it is hard to relate the relative sequence of blooming when sun exposure and soil compostion are different between plants of different species. Probably only of concern to pedantic folks like me...)

Whew!!

More of Mascula

2007-06-01T20:20:00.000-03:00

A few more shots of the Male Peony, Paeonia mascula. Weather was bright but cloudy which has resulted in an overly bright, almost surreal, tint to the flowers, which I can't fix satisfactorily (the tint, not the flowers!). The threat of showers also caused them to close up a bit.

The second photo is of a group of 4 plants of mascula. To their right, Paeonia steveniana showing one bright yellow bud almost ready to open. To the left, Paeonia emodi in the middle distance and Paeonia ruprechtiana at the left front.

Left rear is a light-pink flowered variant of mascula, close-up of it's flower bud (about a day from opening) is the third photo.

P. mascula is a very ornamental, widespread native of southern Europe: into north-central France and into Austria, around to N Africa (in the mountains): around the Mediterranean. It comprises a complex (or grouping) comprising several subspecies formerly considered of species status. The "type" is native to S Italy, Sicily, Greece and Asia Minor. Populations are somewhat disjunct so it is quite variable. A number of references consider it hardy only to USDA zone 8 but it is happy enough here so is good to Zone 5 or colder; to some degree it may depend on the area of origin of the seed. The true species has 5inch purple flowers, with purple filaments; large sharply-pointed handsome leaves. But it is variable.

Second of the year-- Paeonia mascula

2007-05-30T21:50:00.000-03:00

First flower on Paeonia mascula, the Male Peony. (due to the geography of the flowerbed I can't get any closer to it, but I will be able to get a closeup of other flowers when they open.)

Woolly Peony, Paeonia tomentosa, is still in bloom both in the display bed (mostly sun) and in the woodland bed so it is overlapping with another species this year, unlike last year.
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I made a quick visit to the open field where species plants are growing for sale, and found that things are not as far along there as on the home property. This is a first. Worse, some plants have not shown up at all there yet, and many that I had expected would flower this year have no buds. Not sure why... well, that's gardening (and weather effects) for you...

Something native, not a peony

2007-05-29T20:44:00.000-03:00

Here we have the flowers of the native shrub Red Elderberry, Sambucus pubens. It's usually "just part of the furniture" here (i.e. I know it's there but don't really notice it) but yesterday turned out to be the source of a scent that I hadn't recognized. So-- fragrant flowers (although a bit of a rubbery quality to the scent). Later in the summer, big cones of small bright red berries much beloved of the birds.

It has an open form, with weird branch shapes because they are somewhat weak (the centre of the wood is very pithy), grows equally well in sun or open shade, and has leaves somewhat like those of an ash tree. A nice piece of furniture to have around.

Flower close-up: Woolly Peony

2007-05-28T14:33:00.000-03:00

Paeonia tomentosa again. I got the focus pretty good this time, so one can blow up the central tuft, anthers and carpels, to almost full screen (2x) if you are keen on looking into the "private parts" of the flower. Somewhat risque, but the plant doesn't mind.

The anthers (the yellow pollen sacks) sit on the ends of purpley-red filaments (stalks), and the carpels (ovaries) are the fat fuzzy bottle-like shapes in the middle (3 in this flower, but others may have more or less). At the tip of each carpel is the flat, vaguely shovel-blade-like red stigma, which is what the pollen has to stick to in order to commence fertilization. The pollen gets there mainly by insects which visit the anthers, picking up the sticky pollen deliberately or by accident and then brushing some of it off against a stigma when departing the flower; or when entering a flower with pollen from another flower. Bees in particular like rolling around in peony pollen on warm days with the intent of carting off as much pollen as their back legs can carry, to their hive, where the stuff becomes food.

It's Official, Peony Season has started here

2007-05-26T21:03:00.000-03:00

The Woolly Peony, Paeonia tomentosa, came into bloom today during a short heat-wave of 29C (but tomorrow is forecast to be a more reasonable 21C). The temperature washed out the colours a bit, sadly. (Also washed out a certain cyclist who went a couple of bridges too far, but who will sleep like a log tonight)

In this their second year of blooming they have retained their postion as leader of the pack (peonies don't always bloom in the same order here, particularily while young).

Flowers are a decent yellow in cooler weather, have a tinge of green and are slightly fragrant.

This species also has the synonym Paeonia wittmaniana subsp. wittmaniana, and is one of the many species peonies from the Caucasus region. Leaves fuzzy on back, but pointy and greener than the "yellow standard", P. mlokosewitschii. More vigorous, and more sun and drought tolerant than mloko too. Flowers open pale yellow and fade to ivory; they last about a week to 10 days. Stigmas and anther filaments are reddish purple. Leaves are large and lush, a good landscape plant. They provide another colourful show in fall when the seedpods ripen and fold open.This species does well in the partial shade of the display beds near the house, and is also good but less vigorous in an open field and in my test bed in the woods. These photos are of a group of 3 plants in the part-shade bed.
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Nursery note: Bug Report: Blackflies: We got 'em. Lots to go around, although not as numerous as they have been. Hopefully it will be a short season for them like the last few years.

First Peony flower of the year (sort of, but it's potted)

2007-05-25T21:26:00.000-03:00

Paeonia mairei, probably somewhat ahead of itself. This is the first flower I've seen of this species. Opened yesterday.

This plant is grown from seed collected from plants in cultivation, so it may or may not be true to the species. Certainly the foliage is unique amongst all my peonies, and consistent in the three plants which resulted from that seed batch. Two are now in flower and the flowers are also consistent with each other.

The leafs of my plants remain very dark red for quite awhile after they have almost fully deployed, and then turn a dark shiny green with a notable veining texture. The leaflets are narrow and sharply pointed.

P. mairei, named after French botanist RCJE Maire, is native to central China (Yunnan and Sichuan provinces) where it grows in open woodlands and along riverbanks, at altitudes ranging from 800 to 3500m (JJ Halda, "The Genus Paeonia"). It's closely related to Paeonia obovata, although I don't see much commonality between the two in my plants here. It is said to be tolerant of shade and damp soils.

I expect the first flower of Paeonia tomentosa to open tomorrow (while I am out on the bike)-- we are having a short stretch of summery weather for a change, and the previously stalled plants are taking advantage of it. As are the previously stalled cyclists (this one anyways).

Peonies Progress (3)

2007-05-21T21:43:00.000-03:00

At last an appearance by Paeonia obovata, from a wild population in Siberia. This species is always the last to appear here, and in fact most of the plants are not even showing this much yet.

The Largeleaf Peony, Paeonia macrophylla, similar to Paeonia steveniana, just emerging and also more advanced in leaf deployment: two plants right beside each other in the same bed.

And the promise of flowers real soon; the buds of Paeonia mairei coloured up and soon to open. This plant is growing in a pot, and so is somewhat ahead of where it would be if I had planted it in a bed.

Peonies Progress (2) - Tree types

2007-05-21T21:28:00.000-03:00

Rock's Peony, Paeonia rockii or Paeonia suffruticosa ssp rockii is well along at this point. No flower buds in sight yet, but this species has not yet flowered for me here (the plants are fairly young).

Paeonia delavayi a few days along in the sprouting of its foliage buds, both from the root and on last year's wood.

Paeonia ludlowii not as far along; most of the buds are merely swelling a bit so far but a few have begun to sprout.

A bit further along is Paeonia x handel-mazzettii, a natural hybrid of the previous two.

Peonies Progress (1)

2007-05-21T21:10:00.000-03:00

Veitch's Peony, Paeonia veitchii, finally showing, slightly more advanced in some locations than in others. The first pic shows the leafs starting to deploy, the second shows them just emerged.

Here, the Anomalous Peony, Paeonia anomala, just showing up; no obvious difference from veitchii at this stage. This species used to be my earliest to show up, but the warmer winters this decade have for some reason retarded its emergence. And of course I now grow a lot more species than I used to so I don't know if it would still be earliest following a colder drier winter.

The next 2 pics are of the Golden Peony, Paeonia mlokosewitschii. The first with the notable purple colouration to the leafs and the glaucous tint, is my original plant, purchased as a root division. The second with the greener foliage, is a seed-grown plant (seed bought from Chiltern's of the UK). Other seed-grown plants from different sources show leaf colouration between these two.

Green "flowers"

2007-05-19T16:17:00.000-03:00

"Part 3" in the saga of the Helleborus niger (Christmas Rose) as a chamaeleon. From white to tan-ish to green; the sepals should retain this colour until the seed pods ripen (especially if the weather stays as lousy as this past cold wet week).

Growing Peony shoots

2007-05-15T20:37:00.000-03:00

(photos from 12 May)

Yes, it's true-- a flower bud on a Paeonia emodi!

Looks like a bad hair day for this Paeonia mollis.

Paeonia triternata showing off it's fresh green naturally wavy leafs, well on their way to be deployed. Fantastic!

One of the Dr. Seuss critters, Paeonia kartalinika, a close relative of the Fern-leaf Peony (P. tenuifolia).

Noses, Shoots, and Deploying Leafs (part 5)

2007-05-08T23:40:00.000-03:00

This is the last part of this series of pics from 8 May. Whew.

Fern-leaf Peony, Paeonia tenuifolia, at home in a grass swarm. Not planned; the grass came later (as it is tending to do in all my beds. Why oh why do we insist/persist in using creeping grasses in lawns?! (why do we have lawns at all?)

And here, probably a hybrid of tenuifolia, or maybe just a variation on the species. Whichever, it's also enjoying the grass. And while writing that, it has just occured to me that the grass may help to moderate soil moisture in winter here and thus break the plants out of their habit of decline after wet mild winters. Hmmm, time will tell.

Pre-2000 we used to have cold winters with dry snow; back then Paeonia anomala or the Anomalous Peony used to be way ahead of the garden peonies and the other species I was growing back then (which were only a few, and none of the very early ones). These days it choses to sleep in and in fact is not showing yet in most locations around the property. Note the sections of crown and roots sitting proud of the soil. Several plants of this species have adopted the bareback approach to life almost since they were first planted about 12 years ago. I don't bother covering them up.

And finally showing up today, the noses of the traditional Chinese Peony, Paeonia lactiflora, forebear of most of the garden peonies. More slender than any (?) others, and redder. At last something familiar-looking to many! This plant is grown from seed collected in the wilds of Mongolia or northern China (again, the intrepid Halda).

Missing in action (well, inaction really!) is Veitch's Peony Paeonia veitchii, and several tree peony species. They're just not starting yet.

A brief note to those who check this site daily, I have made 3 postings on the evening of 10 May, all dated 8 May: parts 3-5 of this theme. (the reason for messing with the dates is because of the date of the photos)

Noses, Shoots, and Deploying Leafs (part 4)

2007-05-08T23:13:00.000-03:00

This one looks an awful lot like the Fern-leaf Peony (Paeonia tenuifolia) but is in fact Paeonia kartalinika (classified by some as P. tenuifolia ssp biebersteiniana). Botanically, the difference is longer leaf segments on kartalinika; horticulturally the difference is that this is a plant of scrub and open forests, whereas tenuifolia is mainly a plant of the grasslands. I've also noticed that tenuifolia has buds readily visible by the time the shoot reaches this moppy stage, whereas on my kartalinika the bud wasn't apparent until 2 days after this pic. But that's probably not a useful distinction even if it is broadly applicable!

Well-formed shoots of the Caucasus Peony, Paeonia caucasica. Good-sized buds already. There is some variation in the degree and shade of reddish-purpleness tints of the leafs between plants.

Slowly enlarging leaf buds of Rock's Peony, Paeonia rockii or Paeonia suffruticosa ssp rockii, possibly the hardiest of the tree peony species. My other tree peony species aren't yet budding out, but should be close to it.

A few noses of a young plant of the Siberian woodlander Paeonia obovata. Older plants of this species are still keeping their heads down, here. Maybe they know something the rest of us don't...

And everyone's favourite, the Golden Peony Paeonia mlokosewitschii. These went from 0 to 8cm overnight, literally (a bit of a heat wave here the past few days-- great cycling!). More purpley than any other species, especially at this stage.

Noses, Shoots, and Deploying Leafs (part 3)

2007-05-08T22:50:00.000-03:00

Paeonia mairei in a pot and with a well-formed bud, a total surprise. Somewhat ahead of what it should be coming out of the ground if I had gotten around to planting the thing. At the lower left, the greener mop-head thing is a Paeonia anomala from one of the Josef Halda collections, probably finer-leafed than the anomala's I've grown to date.

Another subspecies of the Apothecarie's Peony, Paeonia officinalis ssp banatica. Rather a twisty top to it, but that's not necessarily a feature of the subspecies.

The next 2 pics are Paeonia kesrouanensis; the first is the same plant shown with a naked crown on 05 April-- I piled a bit of loose dirt on it about mid-April. This plant is in the woodland bed.

Slightly further along, this one is in the "part sun" display bed by the house.

And the noses of the Largeleaf Peony, Paeonia macrophylla.

Noses, Shoots, and Deploying Leafs (part 2)

2007-05-08T22:39:00.000-03:00

Paeonia mascula, the Male Peony. These are well-developed already, with fat buds.

Steven's Peony, Paeonia steveniana, also going great guns and with fat buds already formed.

The very interesting Paeonia triternata. Mostly green, blueish tinge, not much red or purple in the leaf even at this early stage. Distinctively furled.

One of the subspecies of the Apothecarie's Peony, Paeonia officinalis ssp villosa just showing its nose.

And the enigmatic Paeonia mollis.

Noses, Shoots, and Deploying Leafs (part 1)

2007-05-08T22:01:00.000-03:00

The past week or so was cool and miserable; peony development was on hold. Yesterday and today were a sudden burst of summer and things bombed right along in the garden. Mainly for academic interest, I made today a datum day and took pics of most of the peony species in whatever state of development they were averaging (plants in different locations start at different times of course, depending on soil warming rates etc.)

First, Paeonia tomentosa, Woolly Peony. These are moving right along, nice fat buds visible as soon as the leafs start to deploy.

Here, Paeonia tenuifolia ssp lithophila, the smaller form of the Fern-leaf Peony. Buds already formed, cute little clusters of bristles. Yesterday they were just little red blobs a mere cm tall.

Note the lack of red in the barely emerged leafs of this one, Paeonia peregrina; very distinctive. Of 4 plants in close proximity, this is the only one showing yet-- and this one wasn't showing 2 days ago.

Paeonia emodi, the white peony from the Himalayas. I believe there is a single small flower bud forming in the midst of all those leafs (wishful thinking perhaps?) but it is still small and not visible in the photo. Fingers crossed... [and noted the next day, yes there is obviously a flower bud forming. Yay!]

And here Paeonia ruprechtiana; reddish-purple tints, fat buds at the ready.

To be continued...

Something native for a change

2007-05-01T21:17:00.000-03:00

This weird little construction is the opening leaves and flower bud of the native Red Elderberry, Sambucus pubens, a small open-form shrub with weak pithy wood. Very showy in flower and later when the small berries ripen a brilliant scarlet. The berry show doesn't last for long as the birds are quite fond of them.

The other native show in progress right now is the flowering of the Red Maple tree, Acer rubra. I used to have a tree with branches close enough to the roof to get a photo (and collect a few twigs for indoors display) but that is now gone; this photo is from 26 April 2000. Anyways, for those with a long ladder or good binoculars, the flowers are quite attractive and not insignificant. In addition, they are quite fragrant too-- it took me years to figure out where that particular spring fragrance was coming from!

Helleborus niger- no longer as white as the driven snow

2007-04-30T20:12:00.000-03:00

After pollination the white sepals (flower protectors that look like petals but aren't) of the Christmas Rose start to change colour (no wonder: the flower is no longer a virgin! [one might say it has been deflowered?!]) In the first pic you can see that the anthers are lax and spent, the actual petals (small and not very noticeable) have fallen off, and the sepals have started to take on a pinkish-tan tinge.
In the second pic, a different flower which opened earlier, the sepals have become quite advanced in their colour shift (but they aren't finished: eventually they will become green) and the ovaries have begun to elongate and swell noticeably. If I had been able to contort my back lower for a face-on shot, you'd be able to see that the male parts of the flower are gone. But this is a family-rated blog so you'll have to take my word for it.

Frostless Days and Frostless Nights*: Peony noses and shoots (2)

2007-04-29T21:17:00.000-03:00

Booming right along without frosts here.

Paeonia mascula shoots from 3 days ago.

And from today, a surprise in a pot-farm, Paeonia mairei which I haven't seen in flower yet (but will this year- note the bud already!); the leaves are distinctively pointed and dark, very attractive. 5 days ago there was nothing here, but in the pot-farms once things start to warm they move along faster than in the ground. Of course the peony in a 1 gallon pot will be somewhat smaller in all respects than one in the ground, even though the root has gone through a hole in the pot into the ground below.

And a Tree Peony, Paeonia rockii. This too has not flowered here yet, but was only planted out into a bed a year and a half ago. I'm just happy they survive.

* with apologies to Freddy Fender, after the (HMCS) Restigouche refit theme song from 1976, "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights". O Yeah, a real highlight year that was... fortunately Frostless doesn't equate to Wasted.

Seedling Surprise

2007-04-28T17:29:00.000-03:00

Daphne mezereum f. alba, the white form of the February Daphne (also called Mezereon or Spurge Olive). This is only 4 years from seed, hence the surprise! Wonderfully fragrant, like the more normal pinkish lilac plants, this form is supposed to have yellowey-orange berries in fall rather than the bright red. Leafs emerge after flowering although they start to develop during flowering. Fairly easy to grow, and although preferring an alkaline pH they do adequately in my unlimed NS soil.

Peony noses and shoots (1)

2007-04-25T20:59:00.000-03:00

With the advent of a few days of warmth and sun things are shooting up all over. Here are a look at some of the early signs of growth in several peony species.

Paeonia tomentosa, more advanced than the last photo. One can see the hairiness from which it gets its name.

Paeonia emodi, a rare beauty from the Himalayans. This is often the first to open its leaves here, which frequently results in frostbite. Maybe it'll flower at last, this year...

Paeonia caucasica, from the Caucasus mountains. Closely related to P. mascula.

Paeonia steveniana, from the Caucasus mountains. Closely related to P. tomentosa.

In search of shade

2007-04-23T20:34:00.000-03:00

Wow, a day of summer. After a wearing 3 hours on the road bike I was looking forward to collapsing in the shade into my garden lounge* to cool off a bit.

Oops. The shade is still a bit thin these days.

* It's not that I've been "warming the bell" on the seasons by getting the lounge out of storage already. I just never put it away last fall...

More Crocuses

2007-04-20T20:44:00.000-03:00

Wow, sunlight bright enough to make shadows, and bare legs on the bike type of weather...

Over the last few days some more "traditional" colours of crocus have come into flower. The photo is of one of the sand beds (despite the shape, not a grave! except for a few finicky plants that didn't make it).

The long green spikey leaves towards the back are a couple of Yucca filamentosa, for which the sand bed was created.

So just exactly how long does 14" of snow last anyways?

2007-04-19T20:17:00.000-03:00

More than 11 days anyways. Today, still just a few remnants from the Easter snowstorm, mainly in shaded spots. Good cycling weather forecast for the next few days which should take care of the last of it. Says the dog, "Enough of that, try to get the stick."

Life under snow

2007-04-11T14:50:00.000-03:00

So this is what happens to Croci when they have 14" of wet snow sitting on them for a few days... the ones that were open have turned to mush, the ones that were in bud are OK and ready to open at the first touch of fresh air. Not very encouraging weather for garden work, but makes for nice pictures...

The plants are a lot more patient than I am!!!

Another Sign of Spring: the inevitable late snow storm

2007-04-08T11:26:00.000-03:00

Yes folks, it's definitely spring in Nova Scotia when you get clobbered with a massive snow dump. (or it could be winter or fall). First photo, Saturday night, gently falling snow already exceeding the forecast amount for my area. Second photo, what a fine sight to wake up to on Easter morning (or any morning for that matter). Winds have packed the white tar ever so well, for our shovelling enjoyment, and the stuff has settled somewhat under its own weight... The back panel of the garden cart is 14inches high... It will be awhile before the crocuses re-appear.

Miscellaneous Spring Garden Stuff, continued

2007-04-05T21:50:00.000-03:00

Helleborus orientalis or probably a hybrid thereof, the Lenten Rose. Once again, a plant located near the foundation of the basement fireroom, although a couple of feet out. Just buds showing so far, although plants of this species elsewhere on the property are barely showing their tips. Lenten Rose and its hybrids are the more commonly grown Hellebores, at least in this country. Their flowers range in colour from whites to greens, from all shades of pink to red, deep purple (almost black), blue shades apparently, and may often have spots.

An excellent surprise still, the third year running: foliage buds of the Blue Himalayan Poppy, Mecanopsis betonicifolia or M. grandis or a hybrid of those. Plants which flowerd last year are not showing, they grow "pups" or sidebuds and then frequently die but the youngsters take over the show. No sign of self-seeding yet.

A peony root searching for "more cold please". Not all of them do this, sometimes it's just how the mulch breaks down or the frost heaves or erosion occurs. I'll probably cover this a bit later in the spring. This is Paeonia kesrouanensis. I know this because there is a label on a stick just beside it-- not from looking at the buds!

Arum italicum pictum, Italian Arum. Non-flowering-size plants. I didn't realize they showed up so early! A bit of frostbite on one of the painted leafs. The pictum form is supposed to have the white-patterned leaf, but these are grown from seed and I'm not sure whether to expect all of them to develop a pattern as they mature.

Miscellaneous Spring Garden Stuff

2007-04-04T21:44:00.000-03:00

This marvelous red spring foliage is only one of the reasons why I allow Geranium robertianum -- Herb Robert -- to stay around (and, having allowed it to stay around for a few years I am sure it will insist for many more if ever I decide I don't want it anymore). Originally brought over by settlers for its herbal quality, the foliage of this biennial is quite excellent, and the flowers, though small, are bright. Unfortunately like all Geraniums, throws its seeds a fearsome distance. When the weather warms, the leafs will change to a mid- to dark shiny green. Note there are a few green ones in the photo, these are the result of me picking a few trapped tree leafs off the clump to tidy it up for the photo; those few leafs had been protecting the plant leafs from the weather. Herb Robert shows up in a few of the potted plants which are sold from my nursery here, although I usually try to pluck them out ...

A few more crocuses open and in bud; these are in a sand bed and multiplying there quite excellently. Formerly I had tried crocus corms (bulbs) in all sorts of "good" locations, but found that they mostly died out over a few years or at best languished without increasing -- except under shrubs. Eventually decided this was due to too much clay in the local idea of what made a good "topsoil", parked a large number of corms in a sand bed I was building, and haven't looked back.

The sand bed is about 4-6 inches of sand over clay-rich soil over a thick layer of leaf compost (well, at least it was thick back then)

Hiding below a deep litter of dried maple and beech leafs are a number of Helleborus orientalis -- Christmas Rose. Today I noticed a few bits of white peaking out and since the snow is temporarily gone

I assumed flowers. And was right. One open, a few others in bud. Christmas Rose, not quite around here: that common

name comes from its flowering habit in warmer climates (it's native to countries along the north of the Mediterranean Sea, and some ways north of there). These are actually flowering somewhat earlier than any wood in my woods or elsewhere around the yard, as they are up against the foundation of my house, specifically the "fire room" where the wood stove crackles the winter away, so the soil around them is warmer than in most places here.

Despite the temperatures, more spring signs

2007-03-29T22:10:00.000-03:00

Yesterday, just a bristle of pokey green leafs. Today, the first crocus buds-- and wait, is that an open one in the middle (sheltered from the cold wind by its buddies)? Close enough to "open" for me.

The snowdrops featured a few days back are, by the way, still tightly closed...

Signs of Spring, continued

2007-03-25T14:21:00.000-03:00

Emerging shoots of Woolly Peony, Paeonia tomentosa -- the purpley spear-tip things to the right of the golf ball. You can also see a few dead stems from last year poking out of the ground; everything else is mulch. This is, just now, the only peony showing here; it's close to the edge of a raised bed and perhaps getting a bit of extra warming from low morning sun.

Signs of Spring!!

2007-03-23T19:47:00.000-03:00

The spring Equinox blew in at -10 degrees Centigrade here, and a full coating of white stuff on the ground. But today--- Ahhhh, today--- definite signs of spring:

Snowdrops poking clear of the leaf litter and already in bud; they'd probably be open but they're sitting in the shade of a large Rhododendron and don't get much direct sunlight.

And more inportantly:

The road bike (the yellow one) gets an airing for the first time this year. Shorts weather in fact! Reassuring to find out that all the hours spent on the trainer over the winter were not completely in vain.
(The mountain bike has been out in most weathers and most days this winter, thanks to snow tires with studs)

What the Heck? Rhodo's in October! Rhododendron impeditum

2006-10-18T20:54:00.000-03:00

In a departure from the recurrent theme of essential autumn flowers, today features a plant that shouldn't normally bloom in fall (and for me, it rarely blooms at all). Well, at least the wet cool June and cooler than usual summer has benefitted something...

Rhododendron impeditum is a wee gem of a subshrub from the mountains of western China near Tibet (apologies to those who find that a statement rife with politics, but my mind is kind of stuck with geography as taught in the 60's), on alpine meadows and open slopes at 9-16 thousand feet elevation. In the wild it can apparently reach a height of 3 feet, but in cultivation is more like 1 foot, which makes me feel a lot better about this plant of mine. It has been in this bed for 16 years now, and is still pretty miniscule; still, better than the others of the same batch which I sited in a few different locations-- they've all expired long since.

If one looks closely on the first photo, one can make out a few buds which never opened; winter kill of most of the buds is a problem here most years, but this year apparently there was some early bud set, and autumn conditions were right for a few to open out of season.

But, flowers or none, it has a nice foliage.

Another Seed Pod-- Glaucidium palmatum

2006-10-12T19:36:00.000-03:00

Several moons ago I devoted a weblog entry to this near-relative of the Peonies-- near enough that some botanists include it in the same family. So I have decided to post a photo of its ripe seed pod and seeds (fortunately the squirrels or whatever had not found a couple of plants; the rest were striped clean). The view is from directly above. Not very similar to peonies now, is it?

Some Essential flowers for fall - 5. Goldenrod

2006-10-10T20:36:00.000-03:00

Common Goldenrod, Solidago canadensis, with it's arching flower spikes, seems to be everywhere in the countryside in late summer. So why put it in the gardens? Well, it is an important food source for a number of the small beneficial native insects that would otherwise have trouble finding a decent meal-- all part of the ecological balance to ultimately keep the plant-eaters at bay. (This photo is about a month old; by now these plants have gone to seed)

One needn't actually put it in the flowerbeds, but allowing a few to grow in a small wild area in a corner of the yard can be a useful approach.

Some Essential flowers for fall - 4. Japanese Anemones

2006-10-03T21:24:00.000-03:00

With tall open panicles of large flowers in shades of pink to white, the tall autumn Anemones are great fall accent for an area with rich soil and partial shade, or even in full sun if given a bit of extra care as to moisture requirements.

As always, there are double forms, one of which is shown here. In late fall the woolly seedheads are of some interest.

The roots are somewhat rhizomatous, but I don't find them to spread particularly quickly. I have known the plants to fail to come up following a particularily wet or cold winter here, but after a one year rest they have always come back the year after disappearing, and usually in a larger patch.

Some Essential flowers for fall - 3. Patrinia scabiosifolia

2006-09-27T22:16:00.000-03:00

An excellent bright yellow, great honey-like fragrance, and long-lasting in cut flower arrangements as well as in the garden. Sturdy upright stems from 3 to 5 ft tall. Patrinia scabiosifolia originates from Siberia and is an important flower for oriental cut-flower arranging.

At the beginning of its bloom period here, Patrinia is somewhat muted by Goldenrod which abounds in my wild areas and in beds that have fallen behind in maintenance, but the goldenrod fades to seed while the Patrinia is still in the vigour of early bloom.

Some Essential flowers for fall - 2. Lobelia cardinalis

2006-09-22T19:34:00.000-03:00

Difficult to photograph as a single plant, Lobelia cardinalis is a cardinal red, showy flower borne in a tall spike. I have found that in my climate it does best in some shade, or at least sited so that the evergreen basal leaf cluster doesn't experience direct sunlight in early spring, at least until the ground is fully thawed. So this is not the easiest plant for the garden hereabouts, but it is so worth a bit of effort. My longest-lasting plants are in open woods, in a drier spot than I would have expected it to like, but right up against a small rock outcropping.

There are white forms, and it has been hybridized with other hardy perennial Lobelias to cover a range of colours between red and blue. A particularily frustrating hybrid for cold-weather gardens is the purple-leaf "cardinalis", which has the same bright red flowers as this species. A very showy hybrid, it is totally un-hardy colder than USDA zone 7 but usually some local garden center or another will bring some in each summer, seducing gardeners away from the green-leafed hardy species and creating another round of "can't grow that here" urban myth.

As with yesterday's Gentian, I have been having a pest of a time getting seedlings to survive for me the past several years. It's usually been an error of neglect in the watering department.

Some Essential flowers for fall - 1. Gentiana septemfida

2006-09-21T21:00:00.000-03:00

Gentiana septemfida, the Crested or Summer Gentian is one of those ever so blue blues that grabs the attention of everyone close enough to catch a glimpse. Easy to grow (although I've been having trouble starting any for the last several years!) and fairly adaptable as to soil. Native to the Caucasus/ NE Turkey/ Asia Minor. The early foliage has a marvelous texture and grows in a hemispherical shape until the weight of the buds causes the stems to sprawl (a forgiveable habit, in view of the great colour.) This plant is one of what I consider the Four Essential Flowers of Fall.

It's a hard life being a dog

2006-09-20T22:21:00.000-03:00

Gershwin, that's him at the base of the tree, has been having a hard time getting his sleep time in (dogs have the same rules as naval aviators: entitled to 8 hours sleep per day, and "all night in" too). With the annual ripening of the beech nuts (and sugar maple seed too, for that matter) the upper stories become mildly infested with squirrels and blue jays out for a tasty (and easy) feast. Lots for all, but you'd never guess it from all the inter-species rivalry. If your basic squirrel spent as much time eating as chasing blue jays to other branches, they'd fall out of the trees from being so stuffed full.

Anyways, Gershwin has no interest in the blue jays (and for the info of baseball fans out there, neither do I), but watches the squirrels for hours (somehow without getting a stiff neck) to keep them off the ground. And the squirrels watch back, just in case he decides to go up a tree I guess (a squirrel can never be too sure). The white arrow up near the top of the pic points out the almost visible head of the little beastie staring down.

And so finally I remember the camera again.

2006-09-13T20:26:00.000-03:00

Ripe carpels and seeds of Paeonia mlokosewitschii, the Golden Peony. My other plant has shiny black viable seed, vice the bluish ones here, but is otherwise the same.

This species was the first to wow me with the bright, two-tone autumn seed show. I've since learned about the several other equally fall-showy species but mloko continues to impress-- just not quite so stand-outish. You'd think the literature would comment on this feature of the plants...

'Tis the season to make and fill holes

2006-09-11T22:51:00.000-03:00

For general information, I am just now in the process of digging peonies from nursery beds for replanting, which activity will (I hope) be followed by planting seedlings into the holes left in the nursery beds, or into whole new nursery beds.

This is the time of year during which, in temperate northern hemisphere areas, peonies are best transplanted if the transplant will disturb the root mass (which pretty much covers most peonies except the small and immature, or those grown in large pots with a proper soil). The reason for this timing being preferred is that the plants start to grow new feeder roots with cooler ground temperatures and autumn rains. These feeder roots will continue to develop and feed the main root during the rest of autumn, much of winter, and through spring until the ground becomes too warm. Peonies transplanted in spring thus have a much shorter period during which to develop the feeder roots, which results in a poor start for the spring planted peonies.

Most of the rest of the Peony seeds, somewhat overdue...

2006-09-11T22:12:00.000-03:00

All these photos were taken at the end of August... I almost got them posted last week but the Blogger site got hung up. And then more good weather descended and miles and miles passed under the tires of my road bike... Anyways, here they are at last. One species has yet to open its carpels: Paeonia lactiflora, the Chinese Peony, which is predominant in the ancestry of most of our, dare I say common?, "garden peonies".

Carpels of Paeonia mlokosewitschii, the Golden Peony, had taken on an interesting and showy red tone. (These have since opened, but not until about a week ago. Photo to follow)

Paeonia obovata, the third-last of my species to show its seed display.

Paeonia macrophylla, close kin of Paeonia steveniana (some might say identical or close enough to it) but a tiny bit later to ripen seed.

Paeonia officinalis (in this case, subspecies villosa). Not so exotic and showy, but on close inspection the inside surface of the carpels are satiny reddish in tint. None of the officinalis mob here have had the bright red aborted beads; rather theirs are tiny, shrivelled, and brown. Only the viable seed has any size to it.
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An interesting development during an Argentine football (soccer) match I was watching on tv today: one of the Ball Boys got red-carded and ejected from the field (well, the margins of it anyways!). The kids had been taking their time in giving the ball to the visiting team when they had won a throw-in.

A few more peony seed shows

2006-09-03T19:44:00.000-03:00

These will all look rather similar, as the species here are all closely related within the "Paeonia mascula complex (or grouping)". Photos are all from 31 August, and the pods had mostly been open for 2 days to a week at that time.

(For more information about the species presented, you will find it in the June/July archives.)
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Paeonia caucasica.

Paeonia ruprechtiana.

Paeonia mascula.

Paeonia kesrouanensis.

Several hundred kilometers later...

2006-08-31T20:39:00.000-03:00

Okay, I'm back from a temporary leave of weblog-absence (or leave of my senses, maybe) during 2 weeks of fine weather during which Peony seeds were ripening while I spent my time shuffling the winter's finally-dry firewood into the basement and beating up all sorts of paved local roads on my bike, in search of "a few good hills".

In the Annapolis Valley the fragrance of Queen Anne's Lace has given way to those of various livestock manures. Clears the sinuses anyways.
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A week ago, and 3 weeks later than the high-altitude form, the "normal" Paeonia steveniana carpels opened. This is one of them. No different, just not in such a rush to mature.

Another interesting set of Peony seeds

2006-08-15T21:20:00.000-03:00

This is Paeonia tomentosa, which was the very earliest to bloom. So far only one set of carpels has opened. This set had three, the lower two opened four days before the upper one, which is just opening in the photo.

What is curious about this one is that fertile seeds are a fleshy semi-opaque purpley red (almost jellybean-ish) when the carpel first opens-- as in the uppermost one-- look closely and you can see that some of the seeds are fully oval and large while others (the aborted ones) are flatter and smaller, as in the lower 2 carpels. After a few days the jellybeans darken to black and take on a harder look. But there are still some segments of red on some of those seeds. This is the first species in which I've seen the fertile seeds change colour so dramatically after the carpels open.

And again more Peony seeds

2006-08-13T21:33:00.000-03:00

Two fairly similar-looking carpel and seed clusters. The red "berries" are seeds which aborted, or stopped developing partway through their growth; the black ones are the viable seed. Unfortuantely my camera doesn't do a good job with the red ones; they are really a bright red rather than the pinkish tone seen here.

Paeonia triternata seed and carpels.

Paeonia caucasica seed and carpels.

A few more Peony seed carpels

2006-08-10T22:16:00.000-03:00

Yes, I'm still here off and on between bike rides... One of the pleasures of the countryside at this time of year is the marvelous scent of massed flowers of the biennial Queen Anne's Lace (Wild Carrot) where it has populated ditches or abondoned fields.
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Carpels and the shiny jet-black seed of Paeonia anomala var intermedia. The seed is weakly attached and can be knocked to the ground by a heavy rain; this is not the case with most species.

Carpels and seed of Paeonia veitchii. The seeds are distinctly blueish when fresh but will often change to black when dried for a few months.

Ripe seedpods already?- Paeonia steveniana

2006-07-30T20:48:00.000-03:00

Somewhat earlier than expected, the carpels of a Paeonia steveniana plant opened today. The plant is specifically of the "high altitude form" which in flower and in foliage seemed identical with the rest of my plants, to me. But the seed seems to have ripened faster than on the rest of them, which may be a factor of the shorter growing season higher up.

The shiny black beads are viable seed, whereas the red ones are seeds which aborted development before becoming mature. They are actually more red than the photos show; very bright and showy, moreso on a gloomy day than in bright sunlight (due to competing glint off the shiny leafs).
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I believe today was the first time in about 2 months when the Environment Canada data for Halifax didn't show any overnight hours with relative humidity at less than 100%!! Fortunately that fog doesn't make it up my "mountain".

That Orchid again

2006-07-27T20:18:00.000-03:00

A face-to-face view of the orchid flower written up yesterday. This was as close as the macro of my camera allowed me to get.

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Spent today removing a few cc's of asphalt from my bike tires after riding into a repaving job (no way around without backtracking, which would have been too far to go (maybe)). I can't tell you how much fun it was riding uphill from St Croix for 6km (about 200m of ascent) with sticky tires trying to re-merge with the road!

During the ride it seemed to me that the stretches of road being resurfaced were not really the worst sections - and believe me, on a race bike you really notice where the pavement is rough, really rough, or not so rough. I am forever perplexed as to how paving priorities are set (at least, after the ballots are counted).

A Wild Orchid

2006-07-26T20:42:00.000-03:00

I'm not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to seeing the unexpected popping up in the garden. I had seen an upright plant with greenish-yellow flowers in a raceme in one of the species peony beds, and dismissed it (without a close look) as just another seedling of Digitalis lutea, the Small Yellow foxglove (a nice enough plant, but I've got lots of it). Then, this weekend a nursery customer saw it and commented on the wild native orchid amongst the peonies. Good grief, it was indeed!

Further discussion about how the peony beds were mulched with hardwood bark, and how numbers of the native orchids appreciate that kind of a growing medium. Always nice when the hitch-hiking seeds in a load of organic material are desireable rather than weeds! This is also a benefit of not weeding until the weeds show their flowers (well, that's my excuse; it's actually more like: not weeding until banks stop making obscene profits).
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Addendum: I went looking for an identity of it, and have settled on it probably being Epipactis helleborine (common name Helleborine). It is wild, but not native, in North America, having come from Eurasia, possibly brought along by early settlers for its herbal properties (possibly involved in a putative cure for gout). It is perhaps a relatively recent immigrant to Nova Scotia, having been first reported only in 1985, and is slowly spreading from the few sites where it has been observed to date.