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Please visit: www.illaherareplants.com to see the new catalog! We are phasing out this old blog server so you need to go visit the new ...
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Illahe Nursery and Gardens My little nursery is located in the South Salem hills at an elevation of about 600'. In following the sage...
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"The blunting effects of slavery upon the slaveholder's moral perceptions are known and conceded the world over; and a priveleged ...
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Crocus leonidii X 'Early Gold' A wonderful, Hardy, Early and floriferous hybrid of C. angustifoliu s and C. reticulatus So is th...
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“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.” Mary Oliver That quote is...
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Fritillaria pontica My Dad is in Albania as I write this and I have to admit the older I get the more I wish he would slow down a bit an...
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As the sunset on 2017 burned a fire red glow,. So the First morning of 2018 dawned crisp and bright. Crisp and cold to start the ne...
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Fall blooming Crocus Updated 9/14/14 Thank you everyone, I am finished shipping for the year. I will leave this post up for refer...
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Erythronium oregonum That's the flower I grew up with growing on the site of my childhood home. I stopped by to see Mom this evening ...
Monday, March 27, 2017
Sunday, March 26, 2017
Fritillaria acmopetala
The flowers as they open have this awesome kind of a corkscrew thing going on with the inner tepals as the flower expands they are fun to watch them unfold and spread out.
The weather continues the bleak, wet pattern we have been stuck in since early December. Trying not to complain, but seriously this entire weekend the sun showed itself for about 2 minutes. I'm really ready for the spring to settle in. Although I think I'm gonna spend spring break chasing winter with the kiddo trying to find the last of the powder on the Volcanoes of Central Oregon.
2 solid inches of rain, wind, temps in the low 50's, Just another March weekend.
Cheers,
Mark
Friday, March 24, 2017
Fritillaria nigra
The other Fritillaria kotschyana
Late March
Friday, March 17, 2017
A Message From The Grower.
This Spring has been an interesting one, constant rainfall and lower then usual temperatures, with very few of the sunny, warm days that we all slug through the winter here for.
But the bulbs are coming up strong now and despite having to fight a few more fungal issues like botrytis then I usually do it's looking like a productive growing season is coming on.
So last year when I posted up the bulb list I think the amazing amount of traffic caused the blog site to crash. I don't want to repeat that this year because I'm sure I lost customers because of it. So I'm considering getting an actual website to host the catalog. I've been pretty resistant to this because I operate this nursery on a cash basis and the added cost of maintaining a website and such is just another expense that up until last year hadn't been justified because the blog was working fine. So I'll keep folks updated on that if I decide to go that way. The other option is going back to an email list format, whereby folks can request a catalog and be added in to receive a mailing. This is more work for me and less desirable but remains on the table as an option.
In other news, I've had the plans and some materials for a climate controlled greenhouse in the works for a while now. I'm hoping this is the year that it comes to pass. Global Climate Change is a real thing that is happening and I've lived in this little part of Oregon for more than 3 decades now and I will tell you that I have seen the climate changing. We get more intense rain storms with colder temperatures in the winter and the summers have been far hotter and drier.
So hopefully adding a climate controlled greenhouse will give me an opportunity to expand the range of some of the species I'm growing. I've had a long fascination with some of the less hardy South African stuff, but I learned my lesson the first few years in the frost pocket that they won't make it here without better winter protection.
I'm hoping to continue expanding the bulb displays in the new rock garden this year as well. Anya has been busy sowing vegetable seeds in the little available space we have as well which we are working with a non-profit that is raising funds for feeding staving folks who are victims of a brutal regime in North Korea.
Thanks for all the support that the loyal and new customers have provided over the years, it's been fun to grow the nursery and continue the passion for the rare and unusual plants that I love so much.
Happy St. Patricks Day,
Mark Akimoff
Illahe Rare Bulbs
at Illahe Nursery and Gardens.
Salem, Oregon.
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
Fritillaria kotschyana
Fritillaria kotschyana |
Rainy, wet and a flood warning on for the local creeks today.
Cheers,
Mark
Monday, March 13, 2017
Spring forward!
Friday, March 10, 2017
Fritillaria obliqua
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
Stink Bells 2017
Fritillaria agrestis |
I keep telling myself I'm going to plant a large display pot of these for entrance into the pot shows!! But I never do, thinking it probably best not to stink out the club houses.
Rain, windy, very windy today with squalls topping the Jackson hill ridge at around 40 mph. Blew open the South greenhouse door several times.
Mark
This winter will not end
Chinodoxa 'valentines day' Toughing it out in the garden beds, it had a foot of snow on it yesterday. |
Sunday, March 5, 2017
5 minute weather patterns
Cheers,
Mark
Fritillaria pudica-The Clone Wars
Wednesday, March 1, 2017
The Archibald Seeds-Iranian Fritillaria's of the Crassifolia complex
Here are some better pictures of the Iranian collection. |
JJA 17255
From the Archibald catalog for JJA 17255:
Iran, Kordestan, SW of Daraki (S of Marivan). 2500m. SW-facing limestone slope. #2nd pic (This coll. has to be almost precisely on Wendelbo’s Iranian locality for F. crassifolia subsp. poluninii but this is a big, robust plant about 25cm. high with up to four flowers. The first thought was that it had to be something to do with F. straussii but the leaves are alternate, neither paired nor whorled. It may be best to consider it a new taxon in the F. crassifolia complex. Oleg Polunin collected a herbarium specimen of a similar plant in Iraq in the 1950's (at the same time as the type-collection of F.c. subsp. poluninii) but it has been ignored (maybe because he recounts that his herbarium sheets blew away & the data may be muddled). This area, high in the mountains right on the Iraq-Iran border, has long been inaccessible & is still virtually uncollected. We doubt that it would be possible to repeat our visit. Perhaps "F. crassifolia subsp. axis-mali" might be a currently appropriate name)
JJA 17242: |
JJA 17242 From the Seed Catalog: 17242 : FRITILLARIA SP. Iran, Kordestan, E of Shuysheh (SE of Marivan). 1750m. Open shale slopes. |
JJA 17242 Note the variability in the seed grown specimens: This one has less yellow on the outer segments and more tessellated patterning. The leaves are larger and have more of a bluish bloom to them as well, overall it's a larger plant in general. I'm going to isolate the clones from this seed selection this year, so these will not be up for sale. Maybe some smaller offsets and seeds in the catalog though. I'm still waiting for the monograph because it would be good to sort these out, Does anyone have some information on naming conventions for clonal selections of variable seed grown unidentified specimens? Cultural notes: I have grown these in my standard composted cow manure and pumice blend and they seem to do very well, over the last few years I've included smaller amounts of a sandy loam topsoil to retain a slightly higher moisture content in the pots since I've moved to production in a Gage Durapot 505. These are smaller pots that drain well, but with record hot temperatures the past several summers, I think the addition of some loam helps to insulate the bulbs better from the really dry summer heat here in Western Oregon. Here is a photo I could find of the habitat associated with these locations, it's interesting how they state this location is hard to access and difficult to collect in. I guess that makes these bulbs super valuable!
Still chilly and cold, the weatherman says temps are below average for this time of year. 42 and drizzly today.
Cheers,
Mark
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