A gray day
Yesterday I woke up a little late, I have the morning off on Mondays. It felt cooler than latter mornings, it has rained the night before. What a relief! For me, for the soil, for the garden. Apparently I had nothing to do, so I took some pics.
Amni visnaga over gaura, stipa and plantago major purpurea
Hopefully some Amni visnaga popped up from a bunch of seeds I threw in the ground last spring. Just one. This is an annual umbel with white flowers and subtle foliage which is supposed to bloom from late june till frost. It germinated very late so those are the first flowers I see but I hope it will set seeds for next year, because one of my ‘2012 good intentions’ is to increase the number of umbels in my garden.
I havent’s really any breaking news lately but some main works on the house has been finished, brand new windows for the upper floor will be ready by the beginning of next month, then I can eventually start painting the house.
I free the small rose garden from the cherry tomato plants and the newly planted gallicas and albas set some fresh shoots to demonstrate their gratitude. They have been kept hostage by tomato plants and an army of stinky baby bugs…
The rose garden
Gray days like yesterday are perfect to spend some time amongst catalogues too. I’ve just placed an order of iris to a famous italian breeder Augusto Bianco and I’m preparing a pretty large order of old and english roses in a Serbian rose nursery (Petrovic). He sell rather small plants but the ones I bought last spring are really performing and the cost of every single plant is really ridiculous! He hasn’t got a wide selection though, so I’m buying roses from Le Rose di Piedimonte too: they sell beautiful roses and for many plants they are the only italian reseller. I fell in love with their indian roses by Viru Viraraghavan, especially Amber Cloud. Then I will, as usual, place an order to La Campanella too. They are rather close to home, they sell good quality roses and beautiful clematis. I’ve also placed an order of bulbs to Eurobulb.nl not knowing what exactly they sell but I keep you informed.
A small butterfly on verbena bonariens, on the panicum 'Warrior' forest.
I have updates about my stipa seeds nests too. Now they became baby stipa kindergarten! I’ve noticed that plants should live where they’ve born to be very tough. That’s why I only seed directly on open ground, I might have less plants, but when they germinate they perform.
Baby stipas
Another plant self sown on the garden and it’s Gaura lindheimerii.
Many little plants have colonized their big mama feet.
Baby gauras peeping over the brick edge
Mina showed her mum feelings taking care of the new seedlings… (Do you think she got fatter? Shall she wear something black?)
Mamma Mina
AltroVerde 
Love your Amni visnaga, would look lovely in my bee and butterfly border, must follow your example and throw a few seeds down! what a lot of baby plants you have, just as well you have help from Mina to look after them!
Really it should have been Amni majus, which is supposed to be nicer. Bigger or louder actually. Never tried it though. I am usually very unlucky (not to say doomed!) with sowings. Never ever sprout. As I’m fed up of looking at empty little pots I sow directly in the ground so I can forget and I’m not getting mad. The things I wrote on the post about sowing is only a big excuse 🙂
You’re right, those rose prices are crazy- how is it possible? I have stipa seedlings all over the garden too, I’ve been moving some and potting some up to be used in a client’s garden, I love they way are are green in winter. Christina
So you are a pro? I didn’t know that.
I have my own theory about Radoslav Petrovic. First of all plants are not as big and well branched like the ones you get from La Campanella or Le Rose di Piedimonte for example, so I guess he keeps roses on ground shorter than them. Grafting are not same quality than other nurseries, they look quicker, so the plant sets easier suckers from roots better than new branches from the rose. Anyway other nurseries sell roses from 11€ to 16-18€ per plant, Petrovic sells from 2,50€. I’ve ordered 10 english roses and 30 old roses and species, that would have cost me more than 450€, I spend 160€ shipping included. I think it worths it. Surely if you need a couple of roses think that you have circa 40€ of shipping costs from Serbia.
I’m just so happy that you got some rain! Your house is looking very paint-able and I KNOW about painting houses. I love gaura and I’m impressed with your babies. I have to divide to get more gaura plants and sometimes they die. Mina is so cute. Max would like to play with her– they could dig up something together.
I think Mina wuold be glad to play with an american furry lad but I guess Rudy would be very jealous though…
I’ve never divided gauras they sprout happily in gravel, maybe try to set a pot with sand or gravel under the arching flowers…
ciao Alberto, anche a te è venuto il trip delle ombrellifere? pure io ci faccio gli occhi dolci da un po’, ma devo sempre scendere a patti con la mia terraccia aridissima e quindi non so bene che fare. Per ora ho una pianta di Seseli Gummiferum, che però, oltre a delle bellissime foglie, in due anni non ha fatto altro. Vedo invece che tu hai avuto successo con l’Ammi, quasi quasi mi ci provo, se non ha abitudini troppo esigenti in fatto di acqua; tu me la consiglieresti?
E l’ Orlaya ti piace?
Ciao Ross! Trovo che l’amni majus e visnaga siano molto belle e una volta stabilite con basse esigenze idriche. Il seseli è sempre interessante, ma non ci casco, mi sa che è schizzinoso! Il finocchio purpureo resiste abbastanza al secco, ma qui in Cà Rossa non riesco a farlo attechire e non capisco come mai. L’anno scorso ho provato delle angeliche: un’ecatombe al sole.
L’orlaya grandiflora la Sofia ce l’ha spontanea in bosco, abbastanza resistente al secco e autoctona, devo procurarmela anch’io…