Fuchsias like rainy weather

   Last weeks we had a lot of rains. Temperatures are mild 17-21°C. So perfect conditions for fuchsias. They don't like it when it's too warm even if they are standing in a shade. Now almost all my new fuchsias are flowering and it's time to take pictures. First my current favourite Smokey Mountain. Nice compact bush which is described at Rockdala homepage as upright so I let it grow with a support. But it looks to me like trailing variety, and it is a trailer according to registration in American Fuchsia Society. So not all information on Rockdala site is correct, I better should check it with several sources.

Smokey Mountain

   Finally I got a chance to see flowering of my Nightingale. This plant I have since last year in a basket together with Ice Maiden and Pink Marshmallow. It's rather weak plant especially on a background of its basket neighbors. But the first 2 flowers were gorgeous, large fully double bright pink flushed with white.

Nightingale

   Flowers of English Rose match its name. They look like a small double roses with their fully flared corolla. Flower is changing its shape and color with age.

English Rose

   Flowers of Beauty of Meise and Naughty Nicole look a bit alike. Beauty of Meise has slightly darker corolla than Naughty Nicole. Plants are different, upright and trailing respectively.

Beauty of Meise

Naughty Nicole

   Plants of Satellite and Rocket Fire I'm training as standards following recomendations from Wenches Fuchsiablog. Both plants are already about 80 cm tall and started to flower.

   Satellite has very large single flowers with white petals and coral red corolla flushed with white. Rocket Fire flowers are large heavy double dark pink with violet corolla.

Satellite

Rocket Fire

   The darkest color in my collection have flowers of Rohees Prins. It's half-trailing variety unlike it's said in Rockdala's description. The flowers are medium size. Corolla is of darkest aubergine color that holds well through a flower lifetime.

Rohees Prins

Iris Garden

   Middle of June is time for Iris to be the main flower of the garden. We have several kinds of irides. I don't know variety names for them. Some are very old plants that were grown here for at least 15 years. Like this blue Bearded Iris. It was completely overwhelmed by weeds and last year there were very few flowers. I put some effort to weed and feed it and this year it seems to be grateful.

   Next to this iris I planted 4 different Bearded Irides that I've bought on sale in the fall 2009 in Plantagen. They had no names, only pictures. Last year none of them were flowering. This year 2 of them got flowers. Although they differ from the pictures of their labels I like them anyway.



   In the same bed we have a huge old clump of some kind of Iris sibirica. This clump is about 1m in diameter and has hundreds of flowers in it. The flowers are not as big as in Bearded Irides but are very tender and look like a cloud of butterflies.

   In the fall 2009 I've planted some bulbs of Dutch Irides. They overwintered with no problem and flowered last year and to my surprise are flowering this year again. I didn't expect them to flower second year in a row since I was reading that usually Dutch Irides are not flowering more then once. I read that they are like tulips loosing their ability to flower without special treatment of bulbs after flowering. I have done nothing to those bulbs just left them in the ground. Some of them growing among tightly planted Gayfeathers Liatris spicata produced only leaves, but those that are growing freely among hostas got flowers. I have a mix of 3 varieties in white, yellow and blue colors. Blue is opening later but white and yellow are fully flowering.

Hosta collection is growing

   After a critical look at my Hosta beds I realized that I can add some more plants there. On GardenWeb Hosta Forum I got some ideas for a wish list. None of this varieties would appear in any garden center around Stockholm in next few years. Unfortunately, the choice of Hostas is very poor here, except the plantshop in Ösmo, where I found some unusual choice last year. So I placed an order to Fransen Hostas. I like this Hosta nursery very much. They have huge choice of newest varieties for good prices. This is my second order from them and I'll order more from them in the future. Many of the plants that I got from them are 2+ shoots divisions of mature plants with well developed root system. They grow rapidly and mature quickly. This time I got 7 plants - 6 from my order + 1 gift plant.
   As a gift for June orders they were sending Hosta Bedazzled. A small size variety with blue-green leaves with irregular yellow margins. Single-shoot division but with many well-developed leaves.

Bedazzled

   I always liked H. Gold Standard on photos but every time when I saw it in garden shops it was heavily infected with HVX. Of course, I never bought it. Recently I read about H. Captain Kirk one of Gold Standard's sports with thicker foliage and wider green margin. This hosta was highly recommended by forum members so I put it on my order. I received strong single-shoot division with very bright coloring and placed it into my shadow bed.

Captain Kirk

   Another Hosta that I got to know about from the forum is Goodness Gracious. It's a tetraploid sport of H. Satisfaction with thicker substance and wider margin. My plant is well-developed single-shoot division.

Goodness Gracious

   Since last year I grow 2 Lakeside hostas LS Fruit Loops and LS Lollipop. Both are growing nicely so I added 3 more Lakesides to my order. Lakeside Beach Captain is a nice large-medium hosta with heavy substance on blue leaves with narrow yellow center. I got 3-shoot plant with mature sized leaves.

Lakeside Beach Captain

   The second Lakeside I got is LS Dragonfly. This hosta is known to have a very special growth habit and being a fast grower. I got 4-shoot division with many leaves and nice roots.

Lakeside Dragonfly

   And one more Lakeside is LS Love Affaire. I like white-centered hostas and this one is recommended by the forum members as a good grower. My plant is double-shoot division with good roots.

Lakeside Love Affaire

   While looking through Fransen Catalog I saw a new sport of Blue Mouse Ears different from others - Dancing Mouse. I had to order this one to add to my small Mouse family collection. I received a single-shoot division with flower buds on it!

Dancing Mouse

Fuchsias starting to flower

   It's beginning of June and some of my fuchsias started to flower. I managed to keep 3 varieties in a hanging basket from last year and these plants were first to flower. Ice Maiden is a very strong plant with many shoots with good sun tolerance. I hope it's going to get plenty of flowers in a couple of weeks.

Ice Maiden

   Next was Pink Marshmallow. So far there were 2 flowers opening but I managed to shoot only buds which looked very tasty. When I found time to shoot flowers they were already worn down due to windy days. So flower picture will come in the next fuchsia post.

Pink Marshmallow

   The third variety in this overwintered basket is Nightingale. It's much weaker than its basket mates and just started to develop first buds. It didn't flower last year so I'm looking forward to see how it looks like. Therefore some of newly purchased varieties began to flower and impress me very much. First was Bella Rozella. Despite its rather small size the plant produced 4 full size flowers of amazing deep pink iridescent color difficult to catch in a photo.

Bella Rozella

   Swingtime started to flower very nicely. I got this variety again since I kept it couple of seasons ago on my balcony where its flowering was very prolific during all season despite plenty of sun and wind it was getting. Now I have 2 plants and both just started to flower. Flowers are not very large but very bright and buds are very decorative as well.

Swingtime

   Flower of Deep Purple that opened couple of days ago is really magnificent as they describe it on in Wibrant Trädgård Rockdala webshop. Contrast between porcelain white sepals and deep purple petals is very striking. Both buds and flowers have very elegant elongated shape. Flowers are large and there are a lot of them ready to open. The plant is vigorous of beautifully hanging habit.

Deep Purple

   More fuchsias are putting out buds so new pictures are coming soon.



   На дворе июнь, и мои фуксии набирают цвет. Первыми зацвели растения сохраненные с прошлого года. Сорт Ice Maiden вырос мощным кустом с сильными поникающими побегами и хорошей устойчивостью к солнцу. Надеюсь, что через пару недель растение обильно зацветет.
   Следующим зацвел Pink Marshmallow. У него я успела сфотографировать только бутоны, выглядящие очень вкусно в соответствии с названием. Когда я собралась фотографировать цветки, они оказались уже довольно потрепаны сильным ветром. Так что фото раскрывшихся цветков будет в следующем фуксиевом сообщении.
   Вместе с этими двумя сортами в той же подвесной корзине перезимовал сорт Nightingale. Но это растение несколько слабее своих соседей и только начало набирать бутоны. Сорт не цвел в прошлом году, так что мне будет тем более интересно увидет его цветение. Зато уже цветут некоторые из новых для меня сортов. Первым зацвел Bella Rozella. Несмотря на скромный размер растение Bella Rozella выпустило 4 полноразмерных цветка глубокого переливающегося розового цвета, который очень трудно передать на фото.
   Swingtime сорт, который когда-то жил у меня на балконе, хорошо переносящий солнце и ветер. Цветки не очень крупные, но очень нарядные и обильные.
   Самым моим любимым на сегодняшний день сортом является Deep Purple. Цветки крупные, элегантной вытянутой формы. Впечатляет контаст между фарфорово-белыми чашелистиками и темно-фиолетовыми лепестками. Растение сильное с длинными поникающими побегами.