Flowers 2021

[Carol 83]

First peony of the year.
View attachment 367419

Another thing I wish I would have dug up from our old house. Mine were magenta.

 

[Mikecheck123]

Is there any flower less impressive than the kohuhu (pittosporum tenuifolium)? It's nearly black! (They release a scent at night time, so color doesn't matter!)



Pittosporum means "tarry seed" and these guys are indeed sticky!

 

[atlarsenal]

 

[ABCarve]

Schroederae... first one fell off so I guess this is the best photo

 

[LittleDingus]

Schroederae...View attachment 367654 first one fell off so I guess this is the best photo

You got a much better display than mine put out this year! Awesome!!

Here is mine today:



I had two planting this size...I just threw the other one out a few days ago. I probably should have tried to sell it. I could easily have broken it up into 8-10 blooming size divisions each bigger than most sold on ebay! I bought this plant as a small single leader plant for like $50 at the time! It's a clone of 'coos bay' AM/AOS not that I still have the plant tag to prove it.

Both plantings started as 4 multi-leader divisions broken off my single original plant. I broke them up to spread them out in larger pots. My single plant was starting to die out in the middle as it expanded outward.

One of the divisions in this one first bloomed back in mid February. Just a single stalk. Now I have 3 stalks open at once. There are 4 more stalks buried in there that are probably a month away if they don't stall out in the approaching heat.

These blooms are late for this plant. It's been a reliable February bloomer for me for years. I had to move it out of display and back into its summer home since it's already starting this years growth. The higher light levels are bleaching out the flowers They're not nearly as rich as they are when they open in February.

I have a besse and this schroder in bloom now at the same time. I haven't done it in decades, but I used to cross phals. My wife had access to agar and sterile syringes and I had some flasks. Just before the pod pops, you can inject it with sterile water through the syringe and suck out the tiny seeds. I'd make up corked flasks with some sterilized agar and inject the sterile seed through the cork onto the agar. A few weeks later, they'd start to grow! It takes about a year before they are large enough to break out of the flasks! For various reasons mostly involving starting my own family, I wasn't able to keep any of my crosses alive long enough to flower. Fun times though! Might be worth trying it again for old times sake...

Sorry for boring everyone! At one time in my life I knew every orchid on the planet (exaggeration...but not by much!) and owned about half of them!

 

[Moridin]

First pics are from a hike with the GF around Lake Natoma and some more around her house.

I do want to thank you all for the new appreciation I have about these things. I never thought in my life I would be posting flower pics on a forum.

 

[Mikecheck123]

Baby JM seeds look like birds:

 

[atlarsenal]

Native azalea

 

[ABCarve]

Caudatum X ??? I call it my Elvis orchid because of its pompadour and long sideburns.

 

[ABCarve]

Psychosis. Very excited with two new spikes. However it’s three years in this pot and I hear they’re fussy about transplant. @LittleDingus or @Leo in N E Illinois please pm if you have advice.

 

[Moridin]

 

[Carol 83]

Red Ruby Gem

 

[Enfield Snapper]

I got a 'Not Minerva' Japanese Quince from Evergreen Gardenworks this year and it's finally opening up. It looks like only one flower this year, though.

 

[ABCarve]

Wanda primrose showing its stuff this spring.

 

[Forsoothe!]

Contorted Cherry, sans a counterbalancing branch, middling left and now only few leaves, a sacrificial branch according to a local squirrel...


And a 'Magical Gold' Forsythia less than one year as a bonsai (hence the extra deep pot) with blooms three times as big as ordinary varieties...

 

[TinyArt]

Forsythia

Making me homesick—3 big forsythia beside the driveway of the house where I grew up, one of our first big bursts of color in spring

 

[Carol 83]

My Momo No Haru

 

[shimbrypaku]

Terrestrial orchid

 

[Bonsaidoorguy]

Purple leaf sand cherry, a $10 Lowes discount purchase.

 

[Esolin]

Bring on the Spring purple! Wisteria, Brunfelsia and Statice.