Dahlia season 2011: part III

   Hot July has passed and cooler temperatures give deeper colors in dahlia flowers. I have several dahlias from Austrian breeder Peter Haslhofer that are growing very strong and healthy. The plants are tall, 150 cm in average, and wide with many shoots. Strong long peduncles holding inflorescence well above leaves. Difficult to find the favourite but Hapet 2008/121 seedling has a lot of potential to become my favourite. It has large and very thick inflorescence that opens as bright yellow with dark red tips. With time yellow color changes to pink.

Hapet 2008/121

   Another seedling from Peter is Hapet 2009/77. It has well shaped inflorescence of decorative type. Colors are vivid and seen from long distance. Very long peduncles holding heavy inflorescence at a perfect 45°C angle.

Hapet 2009/77

   Plant of Hapet Red King is about 170-180 cm tall. Bright red slightly incurved semicactus inflorescence of ⌀~25cm on 40+ cm long pedunles.

Hapet Red King

   In the beginning of this post I put the photo of Trelyn Rhiannon. The plant of this variety is setting records in number of simultaneously opened flowers. None of my other varieties have that many of them opened at once.

Trelyn Rhiannon

   Inflorescence of Vicki is huge. It has perfect shape and looks like it was made of porcelain. Plant is not taller than 120-130 cm.

Vicki

Perennials are flowering as well...

   Not only dahlias but some other perennials are flowering in my garden right now. About 2 weeks ago my only lily - Regal Lily - was beautifully flowering spreading amazing scent in the dusk.

   I have only one kind of Garden Phlox in the garden which I brought from Germany last year. It was not labeled, so its name is a mystery. But I like this plant very much. The clump is very strong. Leaves are dark green with no signs of powdery mildew which I see so often on plants sold in garden centers. Flowers are very fragrant.

   There are not many daylilies in the garden. I'm still not sure if I like them. I guess they need several seasons to become huge multiple flowering clumps that I see on pictures in the Internet. My plants were bought on spring sales as half dried root pieces, so I have to be glad that they are alive and even flowering on their second season in the garden.

El Desperado

Strawberry Candy

   Hostas are flowering beautifully but one is a stand out. It's Diana Remembered with its large pure white scented flowers. This kind of flowers it inherited from one of its grandparents H. plantaginea.

Dahlia season 2011: part II

   Today we came back from our trip and there are more dahlias ready to be photographed in the weekend. Here are some dahlia flowers from the first half of July.

Juul

Hapet 2008/620

Chiffon

Hapet 2009/48

Olga

Alauna Luna

Kenora Fantastic

Trelyn Rhiannon

Mice in the garden

   Yes, there are some Mice that I very much welcome in my garden. Blue Mouse Ears (BME) and it's family are the cutest part of my hosta collection. I like small and miniature hostas and BME as well as its sports is fitting my taste perfectly fine. They all have neat clumps with small round leaves. Thick substance is not very much appreciated by slugs. Flowers are very nice as well.
   BME was registered in 2000 by E. & J. Deckert as 13x23cm (HxW) plant with moderate growth. I have 2 plants of BME. One is growing in ideal for hostas light conditions - morning sun followed by dappled shade for the rest of the day. The other one (right photo) is getting full sun from 10:30 to 15:30. Both are doing equally great.

Blue Mouse Ears

May 21	July 18

   Cat and Mouse is my favourite BME sport. It was registered in 2007 by H. Hansen as 8x15cm plant and is a smallest member of the family as far as I know - true miniature hosta. Last year I bought it from Karin as a 3 shoot plant and it stayed the same size this season but it's flowering. So I hope it will produce more shoots next year. Leaf colors are very subtle - chartreuse with blue-green margin.

Cat and Mouse

May 21	July 18

   Another mediovariegated BME family sport in my collection is Holy Mouse Ears or HME. It's a stable tissue culture sport of streaked Royal Mouse Ears registered in 2006 by M. Zilis & E. & J. Deckert. Very bright and healthy plant.

Holy Mouse Ears

May 21	July 18

   From margined BME family members I have 3 hostas. Frosted Mouse Ears is like HME sport of Royal Mouse Ears. It was registered in 2006 by M. Zilis & E. & J. Deckert. My plant was very unlucky this year. Earlier in the season roedeer stepped twice on it and half of it was eaten by a slug. Despite all that torture it looks good right now with a new flush of leaves.

Frosted Mouse Ears

May 21	July 18

   Mighty Mouse is margined sport of BME registered in 2006 by Walters Gardens. Although description of FME and Mighty Mouse is very similar as well as their pictures in Hostalibrary their coloration is slightly different in my garden. Since they grow next to each other in identical light, soil and watering conditions I can easily compare them. In FME margin holds its chartreuse-green spring color until now, whereas in Mighty Mouse it turned creamy-white very early in the season.

Mighty Mouse

May 21	June 24

   Green Mouse Ears is green sport of BME registered in 2004 by E. & J. Deckert. It emerged good looking but got some fungus disease at petiole base so couple of leaves fell off. I figured out that the problem was caused by maple leaf mulch touching the crown. After moving mulch away from the crown the leaves stopped rotting off. I'm planning to further treat the plant and soil around it with fungicide to make sure to kill the rot completely.

Green Mouse Ears

May 21	July 18

   My most recent addition to the Mouse collection is Dancing Mouse a new sport of BME found by M. Fransen. It has wavy yellowish-green margin on blue-green leaves.

Dancing Mouse

June 24

Dahlia season 2011: part I

   It’s been a while since I posted last time. Summer is in its peak right now and a lot is going on in the garden. Dahlias are starting to be a centre of attention. Most of potted dahlias are flowering for a long time now. Gallery Art Nouveau was the first to flower back in May. It was followed by Melody Mambo, Gallery Salvador, Gallery Matisse, Gallery Art Fair and Melody Dora. Melody Latin and Melody Dixie started to flower a bit later from last days of June. The last low growing variety left to flower is Melody Harmony. Although it already opened first inflorescence I can’t see it since it’s hidden among leaves. But more flowers should open soon on top of shoots. Let’s take a closer look at each plant.

   Gallery Art Nouveau. 4 cuttings planted in a 10l pot. Bright color of informally shaped inflorescence nicely contrasting with dark green leaves.

Gallery Art Nouveau

   Melody Mambo. 4 cuttings planted in a 15l pot. Very dark deep red satiny inflorescence tops medium green lush foliage.

Melody Mambo

   Gallery Salvador. 4 cuttings planted in a 10l pot. Striking contrast of pretty large, Ø10+ cm, inflorescence on a very low growing, 35 cm, plant. Scapes could be longer to bring inflorescence higher on top of the foliage.

Gallery Salvador

   Gallery Matisse. 3 cuttings planted in a 7l pot. Heavily flowering lowest growing pot dahlia in my collection. First inflorescences were showing ugly open center but later opened flowerheads look fine.

Gallery Matisse

   Gallery Art Fair. 4 cuttings planted in a 10l pot. The most heavily flowering of my pot dahlias.

Gallery Art Fair

   Melody Dora. 4 cuttings planted in a 20l pot. This year inflorescence size is much larger than it was last year. I think this is my favourite pot dahlia right now.

Melody Dora

   Melody Latin. 4 cuttings planted in a 20l pot. Actually it appeared to be only 3 cuttings of Melody Latin and 1 cutting Melody Dixie. I guess I've mixed the labels ☺. But the combination looks good. The shape and size of flower heads is very similar only color is different.

Melody Latin

Melody Dixie