Sep 19 2011

Botanic Gardens Belfast

I entered a few trees in the Autumn Fair at Botanic Gardens in Belfast over the weekend. I had time to spare today and took a few snaps.

The main glasshouse.

Spotted this large Yew in the grounds. It has been chopped back recently and was back budding well on internal branches. Interesting to see the technique working on a full sized tree. Nice nebari too.

Haven’t a clue what this tree is, being in a botanical garden, it could be anything! Loved the bark and light through the branches.

The flower show itself was well turned out. Just love the riot of colour from all the Dahlias.

That’s the biggest leek I’ve ever taken 😉

Shows like this are struggling. This one got a last minute reprieve after losing it’s funding. It may not be the best way to display bonsai, in fact, it’s probably the worst way other than setting them on the ground, but it’s a good way of reaching the public with are art.

Aug 9 2011

New Lens

One of my purchases in America was a new lens for my camera, Sigma 70-300mm. I haven’t had a lot of time to play with it but took it out into the garden yesterday for 10 minutes to see what the macro function was like on it. I took a few random shots of foliage and anything else that would sit long enough. Here’s the results.

Jun 24 2011

Escallonia Flowering

I wasn’t expecting much in the way of flowering from my escallonia this year in the way of flowering. It was repotted this Spring and had a major pruning back of the finer branches. However, a few have appeared at the top and add a little extra interest.

Jun 15 2011

Escallonia Flowering – well nearly

After a major pruning over the Winter I didn’t expect my Escallonia to flower this year. However a few around the apex have managed to appear and should be out in a week or so.

Jun 11 2011

Accents for now and the future

A few of my accents are just coming into flower. Typical, as the display was 2 weeks ago. I also purchased a few Alpines a couple of days ago to make into accents. Here’s the photos.

My Wild Strawberry accents

under planted by aquielega

Dwarf Irises

A Rhodoypoxis starting to show, I thought I had lost them all during the Winter.

Daisy 🙂

and the new guys on the block!

Jun 7 2011

Removing Flowers

My Satsuki is nearing the end of it’s flowering period and will soon need to have all the flowers removed. I have already completed this task this year with my Rhododendron, this can be viewed on an older post.

Lee, who commented on that post, was asking for clarification on what I meant by removing the seed pod. Here is a step by step through the process.

Here’s a typical flower on my satsuki.It’s getting a but tatty looking and will soon fall.

This only means that the flower petals will fall. Left behind is usually the ovary and the stigma. Below you can see the same flower bud with the petals removed and the other bits, also including the stamen, remaining.

This is the part that must be removed to avoid the tree wasting energy in producing seed. This can be picked out with fingernails but it is best to remove with scissors as shown below by cutting through the pedicel or stock behind the pod.

This is the removed seed head. If you get it early, it is still small and a lighter colour.

Below is a typical sight on my satsuki at the moment. The petal has fallen and the pod with style and stigma is all that remains. Notice it is bigger than the one above already and is a slightly darker colour. Energy is being wasted.

Hope this helps explain the process. I’ll maybe add this as a permanent page on the blog somewhere for future reference.

Jun 2 2011

Flowering Accent

For the life of me I can’t remember what this one is! It’s true, once you pass 40 the memory goes down hill rapidly 😦

Jun 1 2011

Satsuki

Any Satsuki geeks out there who know the actual variety of this one. It has White/Light Pink, Light Pink with Dark Pink linear variegation and dark pink flowers.