Whats Looking Good January 2023

Oops ran out of space for the last 2.

 

It's very cheering seeing those @Upsydaisy ! Surprisingly there are daffs in full flower in a public garden on the coast here.

 

@Jenny namaste - at least this year Nuccios Pearl has loads of buds (last year it had very few) so hopefully some of them will look good!

 

They are here too Caroline, a friend's always start blooming before Christmas every year and she is only round the corner. We're quite exposed to the weather in Winter when the trees are all bare.

 

Sarcococca confusa Sweet Box the black berries are from last year, this years flowers just opening

Polypodium calirhiza "Sarah Lyman" American fern from the west coast, originally from the Napa Valley. In a dry summer it disappears completely, before emerging with the first autumn rains. Seemingly unbothered by the current bad weather.


Galanthus elwesii monostictus (promise of things to come)

 

I noticed that a wall basket that has had winter-flourishing leaves has made one new flower bud about to open. I had thought it was lobelia, but those leaves are violas I am sure, as the yellow flower bud is.

It was just one of a basket of cheap plug plants bought from Morrisons nearly a year ago. I have struggled with Violas and almost given up on them, but this one and a few others' leaves seem to be flourishing in my garden, though many died through what looked like aphids.

My little garden is how I unstress, which got upset, and seeing that one flower bud today gave back some optimism. (Yes I know there are other things too in that wall basket, a feverfew and some Lysimachia, and Alyssum.

 

I have Daffodils & Crocuses stirring on the balcony as well! Haven't taken any photos of them yet. I also saw the noses of some Hyacinths starting to poke out of the soil in one of the square planters. So plenty of spring flowers to look forward to!

 

@groundbeetle Your yellow Viola will look good now that it has started to flower! I had many pots Violas last year on the balcony & they did very well! This year I have lots of Pansies which are also flowering again after the extremely cold start to December last year.

 

This outdoor Cyclamen persicum was bought from Morrisons cheaply three years ago and has survived two whole winters already. It drooped a little bit during the cold spell, but not much, and came back stronger. After the cold spell the flowers seemed to stand up better and the flower wings look more defined.

I know the winter is by no means over yet, and Cyclamen persicum are generally considered not hardy, even those like this one that are labelled as for outdoors.

What I like about these Cyclamen is they flower all winter, their leaves are themselves beautiful and during the summer the whole plant disappears underground into the corm so summer-flowering plants can grow in the same spot, and then in autumn when the summer-flowering plants get cut back the Cyclamen persicum starts to flower again.

I do have lots of shoots of spring bulbs, mostly crocus, miniature daffodil, snowdrops, and a few odd hyacinths, but the Cyclamen persicum have already been flowering since autumn and will hopefully continue until February or March, and after flowering they are never a problem with messy leaves.

I am trying to grow other kinds of Cyclamen too, with more of a reputation for being hardy. Maybe I am just lucky that this spot is mild enough, or the particular cultivar of Cyclamen persicum is bred to be a bit hardier. Maybe in other places they wouldn't survive.

 

The persicum I had in a pot outside are just mush after the frost before christmas, you must be very mild there or have them in a very sheltered place.

 

The four Cyclamen I put in pots on the balcony don't look to have survived the brutal frosts of the first half of last December! They had been flowering nicely & I was quite happy with them. I had hoped to see them flowering all through the winter - they might have done any other year.

 

Maybe the Cyclamen persicum cultivars that I have are especially hardy, though I bought two more from Morrisons, for a pound each, in the early autumn and only noticed when I got home that they were labelled houseplants, whereas the older one was labelled outdoor plant. The two new ones, which I put outside, are still alive and seem reasonably healthy, but they aren't as flourishing and floriferous as the older one. So maybe it is just the microclimate of that particular spot. The older Cyclamen persicum has seeded itself a lot, and I have transplanted its babies all over the place to see where they prefer to be. They are all still alive, survived the intensely cold patch in December, and they are just tiny seedlings. Though my nasturtiums which I thought were tough didn't survive so well, most of their leaves turned to mush and I have had to cut most of them back and they aren't flowering, as they did this time last year, though they have a few buds, which probably won't make it until the end of February. A lot of my other summer flowerering plants that I hadn't cut back survived well and still have a few flowers. So I am not sure if it is down to microclimate or a hardier cultivar.

 

Hi groundbeetle! I've had a couple of seed-raised C. persicum (and their babies) outside for about 8 years now, taking everything the weather throws at them. I think the key is good drainage and possibly being a bit sheltered from the rain. Cyclamen can stand cold but not excessive wet

 

@groundbeetle Where do you live? You sound as though you live in a "tropical" climate rather than in the UK!

I had to remove the rotting leaves on one of my Cyclamen this morning but the other three aren't in much better condition either!

As we are having a lot of rain, again, I moved all my pots from the exterior of the balcony to further inside so as to avoid them getting much wetter. They had only been put back in their places a couple of days ago after a spell of heavy rain the previous week!

My seedling Nasturtiums resisted one day of snow but the very next day, after a hard frost, they died. It was surprising that they even lived through 3 nights of frost earlier! Even if we only had a couple of degrees below freezing they should have died then.