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Thursday, February 28, 2013

The other JJA


Fritillaria JJA 17242

This is the other Archibald collection. I put more text up about these last year. Just want to point out that they are earlier than last year.

Cheers,
Mark

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

March cometh


How about this combination, chinodoxa 'valentines day', fritillaria striata and a bunch of hoop petticoats in the background. Something in the greenhouse smells amazing right now.

Weatherman says 64 on Friday!

Cheers,

Mark

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

sunshine!


fritillaria jja 17725

I love this little guy.

Sunshine today....short and sweet I have a whole thicket of plum trees that need some chainsaw pruning.

Cheers,
Mark

Friday, February 22, 2013

The grapes of wrath

Grape Hyacinths that is


Muscari leucostomum



Muscari psuedo-muscari



Muscari inconstrictum

A while back I had to give a lecture on erosion control to a bunch of governmental agencies. I found myself doing some research on the history of the topic. Interestingly enough the dust bowl still ranks as the worst manmade ecological disaster of all time. Can you imagine if 80% of Oregon's topsoil was picked up and blown 4 states over? Ya, kinda scary. Poor farming practices and years of drought can do that. Hopefully through education we have better farming practices but we have been in a pretty big drought cycle in middle America for the last few years....just food for thought and nothing at all to do with flower bulbs.

Pouring like a mutha here in the valley right now. On call duty for flooding creeks so gotta stay close to the phone.

Cheers,
Mark

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Chilean Blue Crocus


Tecophilea cyanocrocus just popping up in the greenhouse.

I was giving a lecture on urban Stormwater management to an environmental studies class at the university this morning. I had a slide challenging them to look toward the future and the possibilities of pollutant removal through transgenic hyper accumulation gene expression in new plant cultivars.....I mostly got some blank stares and realized I really should have been a research scientist..... man, what I wouldn't give to have unlimited funds backing my greenhouse and laboratory!

Anyway, the blue crocus is here because I'm giving a talk to our local native plant society chapter next month and I've got a bit in there about responsible grazing and pasture management to preserve native flora....the blue crocus is the lorax of bulbs as regards uncontrolled grazing.


Crocus scepusciensis
I think this has a new name?

39 degrees, rainy with a pretty good wind field setting up today.

Cheers,
Mark

Iris 'Katharine Hodgkin'



Blooming outside in the raised bed.

Chilly today with rain showers and a wind storm coming tomorrow.

Cheers,
Mark

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

The first frit of 2013



Fritillaria striata is coming on, and since I use this blog as much for my own personal garden journal as I do for your viewing pleasure; I did the first fertilizer application this past Saturday.

Suns out today but we are supposed to be moving into a cold wet period...oh well it feels good in the greenhouse.

Cheers,
Mark

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Happy valentines day



Colchicum hungaricum 'Valentine's day'

Just in the knick of time, it wasn't even showing yesterday.

Cheers
Mark

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Iris?

Iris unguiculata?

Remember the movie lost in translation...Bill Murray has definitely played some great roles over the years. So translating plant labels, even ones I wrote myself a year ago can sometimes be a challenge. Somehow this ended up with the label reading Iris unguiculata Sevan. I just can't seem to find anything about this in the literature, any in the blogosphere know what we are looking at right now?

Crocus tomassianus 'Roseus'

There a quite a few more Crocus blooming right now and I'll update shortly.

Supposed to be 60 Degrees on Friday, Man I love spring, evn when it's just a teaser.
Cheers,
Mark

Bloggeroid test



This is a test of the phone for blogging, hope it works because it will get me out in the greenhouse more and away from the computer.