Art can be found in many situations and you don’t need to look too far in the alpine house.
See my many magnified, magnificent and magical mushrooms and alpines for startling patterns.
Getting up close and personal is one of the main ways to enjoy Alpine plants and succulent species.
Houseleeks seem to grow for the sake of making patterns from Hens and Chickens through to this rapidly reproduced colour scheme. Other images on Google Bukiniczia cabulica makes a strange pattern with a mottled effect in blueish-greenish shades. Despite a couple of leaves that are going over on this plant even more extreme patterns are found on Google.
Rodents including Gerbils are said by the Pacific bulb society to sip the nectar of Massonia depressa and there are lots of rodent droppings to the left of the flower stalk in the second picture on this site.
Even fungi can produce unexpected patterns. Observation and an open mind are all you need to see nature at its best.
The website greengrove.cc is an aggregator of news from open sources. The source is indicated at the beginning and at the end of the announcement. You can send a complaint on the news if you find it unreliable.
Georgia O’Keefee painted some brilliant portraits of red Poppies some times upto 3 feet wide and high, even bigger than the real thing in my garden.The last photo shows how Red and Green work well together on a canvas or in a garden setting. Oriental poppies are perennial and most Poppy species are easy to grow from seed of which 50 varieties are available from Thompson & Morgan
The objective of a Stumpery is to create a garden feature from ferns, logs and old tree roots. The Victorians started a trend to build Rooteries, Ferneries and Stumperies as romantic woodland places to grow exotic ferns and woodland plants. If you have a dark corner or want to collect ferns then you could start your own Stumpery quite easily and add to it as the fancy takes you.
Members of the Buttercup family are called Ranunculaceae. To grow the plants successfully beware the seeds tend to have a short period of viability and need planting straight away.
There are a host of different Saxifraga or singular Saxifrage. They make for an interesting group to grow and collect both in the garden and in troughs or pots depending on the variety. Saxifrage kolenatiana has rosettes that throw up spikes of flower in summer similar to its better known Saxifrage relative ‘London Pride’.
Yesterday I visited the 2018 alpine event at Harlow Carr. I was very impressed and I am sure the other people who braved the elements were well satisfied.
Red, White and Blue the patriotic colours of the Hydrangea are augmented by pinks and purples like H. Ayeshia above as a variation on those themes. Flowering from mid-summer these shrubs give a magnificent display with very little effort. Did you see Hydrangea maritima on seaside holidays in large displays of sugary pink and sometimes blue.
This natural pattern of succulent leaves was spotted in my garden as the Autumn flowering Sedum Spectabile burst forth this Spring. This follows the patten in the leaves at the end of a branch of Monkey Puzzle Tree and set me thinking. Many gardeners spend a lot of time and effort to get patterns of colour and texture, variety of shape and form or harmonious patterns to please the eye but nature does it best.
Nemesia are good flowers for rock gardens, containers or for use as a bedding and front of border plants. Surprisingly they also make a nice and useful cut flower.
Mesclun is a name for a traditional melange of salad leaves. The name mesclun doesn’t feature in any of my gardening reference books before 1980 so old gardeners may not recognise the term.
The ancient Chinese have cultivated Tree Peonies for over 1500 years. Prized specimens are and were grown for medicinal purposes as they contain glucocides and alkolides. The imperial palace gardens had many specimens that became quite valuable.
Tulips grow from bulbs not catalogues but I guess that is obvious. Nevertheless I think the first job is to check over any Tulip bulbs you lifted last spring to dry off. Bin any with mould or soft centers, do not add them to your compost heap.