Whats looking good in September 2012

Ooo thankyou Peter that would be great, I'm not usually a fushcia fan but that ones gorgeous

 

Angelia: pics a treat as always
Peter: I love the pic of the gloriosa, it looks a bit misty

 

Simbad - I have made a note of that. I am not really a Fuchsia fan myself. But the three that I like and grow are F. boliviana, F. arborescens and the triphylla group - currently growing "Thalia".

Loveweeds - thanks. The Gloriosa is currently in my sitting room standing at about 5 feet and the picture was taken with the window behind. Not really the best photo. It needs the heat and I can see more of it than if it were in my greenhouse. Its a somewhat difficult plant - so I am really delighted it has flowered and want to get all the pleasure I can from it.

 

Thank you all for your kind words!

Thanks, Peter! The garden seems better than last year, but I'm not even halfway through. (I'll break up the lawn this autumn and prepare new beds for planting 'things' in spring. ).

I can see two of my failures in your pictures: the lobelia, and the gloriosa rotschildiana (this last one is especially painful to take).
Two years ago, I could not germinate a similar lobelia from seed (I don't remember the varietal name though). And my two baby gloriosa tubers just didn't grow this season. They were in perfect health, I assume I planted them with the eye pointing in the right direction. I enriched the soil. Summer was hot. Nothing sprouted.
I'll try again next May.

The fuchsia is LOVELY!
Although I'm not a fan, just like simbad...

By the way, is it possible for me to propagate my f. thalia by cuttings which have flowered? Or could I just snip the top before the buds are fully developed?
All its side shoots are in bud.

 

Hi Angelina.

Gloriosa seems to be a somewhat difficult plant. The key seems to be in the watering. Last year I got it all wrong and I also had some failures this year with it too. A nursery man who grew it professionally, on another forum, said that you can plant it horizontal in a pot, water the pot, then just leave the pot under a bench and don't water it again until it starts to sprout. It needs heat - but I think you have more of that than we do. If you water it again before the foliage appears the tuber will be likely to rot. Then as long as it has plenty of foliage it needs plenty of water, but once the foliage dies back - don't water it again till the next year. He has since given up growing them as he found them too tricky.

With regard to cuttings, they always say take non flowering pieces, which I am sure is best. But you can cut the buds, or flowers, off and I have had good results that way too. One side effect that I have found using flowering shoots is that they seem to have a flowering hormone in the stem, and that sometimes makes the cuttings want to flower as well. Before now I have taken cuttings of the species Salvia splendens (not the hybrids you see in garden centres) when it was in flower, and the cuttings started to flower before they had even rooted. And when I left the flowers on, the plant flowered continuously for the next 12 months!

As you know Fuschia "Thalia" is not hardy. Most non hardy things that I grow, including Fuchsias, will survive if I just keep them frost free - but "Thalia" and other triphyllas seems to want a higher winter temperature.

 

Thank you for being so exhaustive, Peter!

I just planted the tubers in a slower-draining bed and probably this is what failed me.

I think my salvias will be subjected to merciless experimentation (in addition to seed starting). I just can't resist this one.
Did it root eventually?

 

Oh! yes. The Salvia rooted in the normal time of about 10 days. That was with good light in a light box and with bottom heat in about September. At first I cut off all the buds on the cutting. But new ones formed quicker than I could cut them off, so after a while I just left them. I have done this with Salvia splendens species and also with S. coccinea - both of which flowered continuously for 12 months. I have also left buds on other cuttings such as Fuschias and had them flowering within a week or two of making the cutting. But I can't say that they then flowered continuously.

I have a peculiar way of making cuttings. I put them in a heated propagator and I then poor some water into the propagator tray and put the lid on. This means that they are kept in an atmosphere of 100% humidity - so there is no question of any loss of water from the cuttings. Because there is no water loss I don't have to remove any leaves from the cutting - so my cutting might have 20 or 30 leaves left on. This may speed up the process - though I am not entirely sure what is going on. My main fear, when I started, was that everything might rot, but it has never happened. However, there will be some plants such as Pelargoniums that hate to be covered as cuttings and I have no doubt that they would rot if I tried them that way.

Gloriosa is the national flower of Zimbabwe, where it experiences a lot of heat and periods of dry and wet. If you can get those conditions, one year in the right order, I suspect that Gloriosa will do very well for you. But in another year the conditions might be different and they won't. In Britain there is no way we could reproduce that climate in the garden, so we have to grow in pots which gives a bit more control.

 

One or two things still looking good despite the wet weather of late; Colchicum Waterlily and another smaller white flowered variety still going strong after a couple of weeks;





Clerodendrum looking good, also has an amazing scent


And Fuchsia Thalia still flowering strongly;

 

That Colchium is lovely Bilbo. Which Clerodendron is that?

 

Hi Peter it's Clerodendrum Bungei

 

She looks bonny today Woo,
Jenny

 

Anyone used Fuchsia seed pods in jam making? I've been collecting mine and storing them in the freezer, when I get enough I thought I would try and make Fuchsia Jelly.

 

Sounds interesting, liliana! Can't wait to hear how that turns out