Prosit Neu Jahr from Vienna!

No, unfortunately I'm not in Vienna. I'm listening to ( and watching!) the New Year's Day concert form Vienna. A tradition for us. I'm also cooking and blogging..... And I'd also time this morning to take a couple of pictures.


This is a flower of Camellia japonica cultivar "Ascona", former name "Contra". The latter is the name of the small Town where I'm coming from, but due to the fact that Ascona is well-known (at least in Europe), they renamed the cultivar... If the weather is favorable, still unusual for a japonica cultivar, the flowering period begin as early as end of November through April-May.

The flowers after 2-3 weeks are full opened and due to the could temperature they also  unterwent a nice discoloration.

Wishing you all a very happy and prosperous new year 2013!

Greenhouse

This morning I find this small jewel blooming in between other rupicolous Laelias.


Laelia kettiana

Grevilleas

Due to the mild weather some of my grevilleas are still blooming or have already started to bloom. I have a couple of species/cultivars that are not hardy enough for my USDA zone 8, so I'm forced to overwinter them in a veranda.


Grevillea Robyn Gordon. Ok, the plant is in a container and in the veranda, but still the flowers are gorgeous!






Grevillea johnsonii. This species is very thankfull blooming from spring to fall, and sometimes also during the winter.



In the garden the grevilleas are fine and I hope this winter will be mild. Grevillea lanigera Mt tamboritha recovered very well from last winter frost. Grevillea rosmarinifolia is covered with flower buds and in March-April I'll experience a reddish color explosion! The less difficult one that I cultivate in my garden is Grevillea Canberra gem, flowering in March-April and undamaged with -10°C or less.

 

Grevillea lanigera Mt Tamboritha form.

Grevillea Canberra Gem, the flower buds are still developing due to high temperature up to 15°C during the day.

Grevillea rosmarinifolia in the December sun.

At the beginning of December I was for a couple of days in Seattle and I visited The Desert Northwest Nursery in Sequim. The owner Ian Barclay is extremely helpful and the plant list contains some australian species virtually impossible to find in Europe or even to buy as seeds from Australia. In the next years I'll have some additional Grevillea species blooming in my garden....
Ian has also a very helpful blog with many good informations about the cultivation of plants from mediterranean climate regions of the world. http://desertnw.wordpress.com/



Autumn blues

Well, this morning waking up was not so nice. The weather is unfavorable and it's no time to go into the garden. The sky is grey and the clouds cannot decide if they give us rain or not. For this reason I have time to post a couple of pictures captured the least days in my garden and greenhouse.
Beginning with the same topic as the last post, my species vanda Vanda coerulea and Vanda coerulescens are blooming. No scent and the flowers last only few days, but I like them much more than hybrids. Later I will post some brightly colored pictures again the blues.

Vanda caerulea




Vanda coerulescens pink form

Laelia dayana var coerulea

Last Friday I visited a local orchids exhibition with countless hybrids in all the possible color variations and shapes. but at the end what I like the best are natural forms. Back home with 17 new specimens for my collection, my nostrils were stimulated by an intense spicy scent. My Cattleya dayana opened her first flower!


I had some troubles posting the pictures, but finally this is my C dayana coerulea!

Phelps

If I could be just half so effective as plantsman, as he is as swimmer..........

from: www.sportlive.co.za

Violets

I do not remember exactly, but must be four to five years ago that I purchased a plant with few violets as weeds in the container. They were so dark blue that I didn't clean off the surface of the container. After years they have migrated as weeds in some locations in the garden, freely cross breeding with the usual forms of Viola tricolor present in my region. The following pictures show some of the nice results.

Top: "originally purchased" violet.