Awakening Perennials - Quiz I-IV.

But I guess it gets very warm in summer. I've been to Southern Germany in June/July and it was hot...

 

Then that's roughly the same: temps above 30C°, sometimes 35C° without much rain until September so without watering very few plants can last through the sweltering hot days... But we do have wonderful late summers and autumns, they're usually warm and fine - but again, without much rain.

The grass is only green in areas where it is watered every day (early morning only) for one or two hours and you have to struggle to get your lawn anywhere near the average English lawn... It takes some time until it recovers each spring and it takes a lot of work and fertilisation until it starts. The first mowing doesn't usually take place until mid-April.

 

Agatha, well done and thank you. You had me well and truly beaten. I should have recognised the Hesperis as I grow loads each year and plant out in the autumn. But your Echinacea is ahead of mine. I have just had a look now and it still doesn't look like your's! My Physostegia is not at all obedient. It keeps disappearing and then I find a bit in a pot somewhere. :D

The principle of recognising new growth is quite difficult. You can Google flowers themselves, but not new growth. I think there is great scope for a site showing the seed, the seedling, new growth, and the full grown plant along with leaf and flower detail.

 

Thanks very much, but really, I meant it a bit of fun... :ntwrth:

Perhaps soil can make this huge difference what is out and what is not, mine is cold and heavy clay with much more chalk than I need, so it limits the range of plants I can grow. But what does like this waterlogged soil grow like crazy, and the others give up the fight within two years... I suppose you should rechristen your Physostegia to elusive plant, then... :D

And I do think it is a marvellous idea to start a site about how to recognise plants from their shoots or from their seedpods, or it might be possible that it is collected here within a single thread so as not to scatter the pieces of information about/around the whole place. What do you think?

 

It's a good idea. It could be made a sticky, amendable by anyone with a couple of images for each perennial - newly emerging plant and how it will look before flowering.

 

I do agree that it would be nice to have some reference pictures, but I worry that there are so many plants out there. You really need some sort of database, and a forum is not a good vehicle for that.

However you have encouraged me to try and keep an area of new growth pictures on my computer, rather than letting them get lost amongst all the others.

 

I try to take pictures of the garden at different times of the year, although I've been a bit remiss this year, probably because until recently there was very little to take pictures of! In the depths of winter, it's comforting to look through them and remember that the garden will look better again. I also find monthly shots are a good aid to memory about what is growing where, perhaps what didn't work so well with it's neighbouring plants and what needs moving.

Actually, I have a whole file on the computer, just on gardening:D

 

I keep doing that but somehow, when the real show begins in May, I forget about the foliage and the individual plants and concentrate on the bloom...

That's what lasts me through winters, and help me to redesign the beds when needed...

Ditto. :D It is divided into botany, water gardens, Japanese gardens, English Gardens that need visiting, miscellanea, and garden design... Without categorisation I wouldn't be able to manage it...