maihuenia mania

Posted on April 5, 2013 by paridevita

A while ago I posted a picture of a seed of Maihuenia patagonica germinating after being treated with GA-3. Well, it turns out that either I used too much GA-3, or treating this species results in seedling elongation.

I haven’t had this problem with anything else I’ve treated, but in this case I think the situation is hopeless. Yes, this is a cactus.

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There is one seed germinating beside it; I decided to nick the seed, which is pretty large (visible in the picture), using my handy extra-sharp Opinel. One seed went down my pants (I don’t know how, it just did) and when I shook it out, I stepped on it and smashed it. One flew out of my fingers and an after an hour of crawling around the kitchen floor I gave up looking for it, but four or five have been nicked, and the results are very promising.

The germinating seed is just the the left of the bend in the hugely elongated stem of the seed which germinated earlier, but here it is up close, though not in focus. 040502

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it must be spring

Posted on April 3, 2013 by paridevita

Instead of waking up to the predicted snow, it rained. A whole tenth of an inch. But the fact that it didn’t snow, for once, is a sign of spring.

Another sign is that the water in the canal is flowing again.  It comes from Turkey Creek and flows east to some unknown destination.

And a third sign, one which involves a slight bit of embarrassment, is that the rock garden plants have suddenly come to life; it is quite possible that I forgot to reset the min-max thermometer last January and the -3 I thought I saw just a while ago was because the pin got stuck. Whatever. Even though many things are a month or more late, they’re alive, and that’s good. The only plants in bloom so far are bulbs.

Cyclamen coum is blooming all over the rock garden, in various shades of pink. All of these were sowed by ants, from the original plant.

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A few other things. Fritillaria bucharica ‘Romit’.

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And some corydalis. The native Corydalis aurea appeared here one year, and has been self sowing around the garden, though not as much as I would like. It’s not in bloom yet, but these are:

Corydalis angustifolia, scented of vanilla.

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Corydalis schanginii subsp. ainae:

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Corydalis ruksansii:

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