Propagation – Page 32 – Botanically Inclined

A study in contrast – Aquilegia species

A group of plants that I really like and hope to increase my collection, are the columbines: Aquilegia spp., and in particular, of course, the alpine columbines. In contrast with the more regular garden Aquilegia varieties, the alpine ones are short in stature but bearing large flowers. In most cases they have a delightful bluish, compact foliage, which in itself makes a wonderful addition to any small rock garden.

Aquilegia scopulorum x coerulea in the rock garden at Wrightman Alpines

All Aquilegia are important food source plants for bees, bumblebees, hummingbirds and hawk moths. Even just for this reason one should include them in the garden. Interesting fact, biologists found that the length of the nectar spurs in Aquilegia evolved to allow flowers to match the tongue lengths of their pollinators. Species with very long nectar spurs, like A. coerulea are pollinated by hummingbirds and hawk moths, while the short spured species, like A. canadensis are fancied by bees and other short tongue insects.

Aquilegia coerulea (Colorado blue columbine) has flowers with very long nectar spurs that look like space ships or sea creatures, wherever your imagination tends to go, up to the sky or down in the ocean. Very variable in height, anywhere from 15 to 90 cm and in flower colours – from white to pale or dark blue; also there are reports of a variety with spurless flowers!

I am greedy when it comes to columbines. This spring I am looking forward to see flowering (and take more pictures) in my rockery a few alpine columbines I grew from seeds: A. jonesii – the smallest of columbines, A. saximontana and A. discolor (that is if my seedlings survive the record low temperatures we have this winter).

Also ready to greet the pollinators this year: A. nigricans (Carpathians Mts. collection), A. alpina and A. atrata.

I would note that most Aquilegia species are polymorphic and difficult to define adequately. Some of the variability is because of introgressive hybridization (Flora of NA). Even distantly related species of columbines are often freely inter-fertile, hence the multitude of hybrids and cultivated forms available. Also, this poses a problem for seeds collection, especially in the case of cultivated varieties if one requires true to type species.

February 26, 2014

In a mood for Arisaema part II – Arisaema galeatum

Gardens, Plant portraits, Propagation

Another great Arisaema that flowers in early spring is Arisaema galeatum. It is another story than A. sazensoo because it has a really big tuber. It is said that can grow to half a kilogram! Last year when I was checking the tuber in early March I caught it just starting to grow and it looked very appealing to me – with a dark-chocolate coating and raspberry syrup on top would be delicious! But I put myself together… This is an Arisaema from the Himalayan range (NE India to Bhutan), which grows during the mansoon months and then the leaves start withering in late summer and goes dormant early. Good to keep this in mind as it shows its requirements for a very good drainage from late summer to fall, and during winter of course.

The flower emerge on the same time with the leaves, on a short peduncle and it has a helmet-like (galeate) spathe, similar with A. ringens. It can be green or brown with whitish veins and has a white, translucent spadix that ends in a thread like whip. I like to call it Dolphin cobra lily, because that’s what it suggested to me first time when it bloomed – a dolphin emerging for air from within the leaf!

Just like its sister, A. ringens, the huge trifoliolate leaf is very ornamental. Actually, I consider it among the most beautiful from all Arisaema species I’ve seen. It unfolds slowly and the back pattern with accentuated purple ribs makes it mesmerizing to watch.

It did form two tuberlets two years ago (not a great rate of offsetting), from which one even produced a small flower in its first season! Unfortunately, the rainy weather we had late summer to fall it proved fatal for the smaller size tubers. If someone wants to give it a try I suggest container culture, so it can be moved to a dry place in late summer, or if in the garden a real well drained area, like close to a tree or shrub that would remove the excess water and also provide the part-shade required.

February 25, 2014

In a mood for Arisaema – Arisaema sazensoo

Gardens, Plant portraits, Propagation

This is an updated post on Arisaema sazensoo – I have more ‘data’ to share now than last year. I am always in a mood for any Arisaema, but especially for the rare ones like A. sazensoo.

Arisaema sazensoo, is one of the first Arisaema to emerge in the spring, just like its cousin A. sikokianum. It is native from Kyushu, Japan and resemble a little A. sikokianum but the spadix doesn’t have such a pronounced white ‘pestle’. The spathe is usually deep purple, recurved over the spadix and the leaves are trifoliolate, like you can see in the images. It was thought to resemble a Buddhist monk in meditation – ‘zazen’, hence its name sazensoo, or at least that’s what I read. Anyway, you can tell it is a very charismatic Arisaema!

Arisaema sazensoo

Another characteristic is that it stays in flower over a very long period of time, comparing with other Arisaemas. It had one attempt to form seeds, which proved sterile, but two years ago in late fall I had the very pleasant surprise to find that it had produced an offset (a tuberlet)!

On a few websites you’ll read that A. sazensoo is a non-offsetting species, but obviously someone got it wrong. In the images below I can present now the tuberlet that has grown quite well in one season (A. sazensoo doesn’t have a big size flowering tuber). More than this, the old tuber shows very clear another tuberlet (which is best left to detach by itself).

Like many other Arisaema species, it prefers a part-shade location and can be grown very well in a container, where a good drainage can be easily provided. Best transplanted in late fall with fresh potting mix and kept dry over the winter.

February 24, 2014

A yummy treat – Polygala paucifolia

Plant portraits, Propagation, Wildflowers of North America

Polygala paucifolia - in the Bruce Peninsula, Ontario

One of my goals is to concentrate on the propagation of a few N. American native plants that would be as prized in our garden as any Chinese or S. American novelties. The hype of using native plants in our gardens and landscapes it always cut short by their difficulty to propagate (and by the lack of available seeds collections, of course). Whatever doesn’t fit into the profile of mass-production has been abandoned or perhaps not even tried in cultivation.

Besides serving an ornamental function, expanding into cultivation a few of the hard to find and/or propagate N. American species, would serve also a conservation purpose by maintaining and enriching the genetic material/ biodiversity through sexual propagation.Conservation through cultivation, (aka propagation) has already proved its importance in a few unfortunate cases of species extinct in the wild but saved, at least temporarily, in gardens sanctuaries.

“No, no! The adventures first, explanations take such a dreadful time!” – Lewis Carroll: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

OK. Last year we were able to finally collect a few seeds of Polygala paucifolia –Gaywings or Fringed polygala This is a low growing plant found in dry to moist woods, in part shade. It flowers in May-June and the pink-purple flowers are quite unusual – they have 3 short and 2 long wing-like sepals and 3 joined petals with a frilly crest at the tip. Fruit is a capsule. The seeds present an appendage – elaiosome, which is associated with ant dispersal – now you see where I’m going? A bit too late and the seeds are gone. The appendage contains lipids, proteins and starch, which serve as a reward for the ants. They drag the seeds to their nests to feed their youngs on elaiosomes and thus provide the service of dispersal. I bet they are very yummy!

The germination ecology for species from Polygalaceae has not been investigated in detail. I found a study claiming that for P. paucifolia, 4 months of dry storage results in an increase in germination. Other Polygala species are known to require pre-treatments for germination. Anyway, I don’t have that many seeds, so for this year I’ll try two variants: dry storage and moist-cold stratification until sowing in the spring.

We shall see…the seed adventure continues!

Note: Many spring flowers from the temperate climate rely on ants to disperse their seed (myrmecochory – I wouldn’t try pronouncing this); from the very well known: Trillium, Hepatica, Corydalis, Dicentra…

February 20, 2014

Bristly Sarsaparilla

Plant portraits, Propagation, Wildflowers of North America

While gazing to the rocky shores of the Georgian Bay in Killarney, one plant kept drawing my attention (and camera) – the bristly sarsaparilla: Aralia hispida. Growing in any small crack of the big granite boulders, with shiny leaves and blackish fruits proudly swinging in the wind, it made me think, again, how many wonderful, garden-worthy, but underutilized native plants are around.

Drought resistant, growing in full sun in rocky, poor substrates, this Aralia could be a prized plant for any garden. The leaves are twice pinnately-divided, and the stem base is covered by bristly hairs and becomes woody persisting through the winter. White-cream flowers appear in June-July in round umbels on stalks that diverge at the end of the stems; they are followed by purplish black fruits resembling a bit the elder fruits (hence the other popular name: dwarf elder). The inflorescences stalks become red, making a nice contrast with the black fruits towards the fall. But enough talk, the pictures are always more convincing…

Not to be confounded with Sarsaparilla – the common name used for various species of Smilax (greenbriers), more particularly for Smilax regelii.

February 20, 2014

And then there were the Saxifrages…

Gardens, Plant portraits, Propagation

The Latin word saxifraga means literally “stone-breaker”, from Latin saxum (“rock” or “stone”) + frangere (“to break”). Pliny the Elder thought the plant was named like this because at the time it was given to dissolve gallstones (another example of the Doctrine of Signatures). Even so, Saxifraga is a very good name for a plant growing in rock crevices.

Saxifraga ‘Redpoll’

Some of my regular readers might have noticed my penchant for mountains, and of course, everything that grows on them. The seed collections from the Carpathian Mts. we did last summer, my limited garden space (at some point there is no other way to expand but UP), and the fact that every year I plan to do it and it never happens, all combined together and I finally made it to the only nursery specialized in alpine plants from Ontario: Wrightman Alpines .

Alpine house with Saxifraga and many other species

It is a small size operation (mail-order) but growing a vast array of alpine plants from all over the world. On their website, besides perusing the catalogue, with some species in very short supply, you can watch a few interesting videos about building clay crevice gardens, planting tufa and much more. Alas, this cold month of March made it that many species were behind their usual growth, but to put things into balance, the Saxifrages were in flower. Skilfully grown in small tufa pieces by Harvey Wrightman, they were looking like miniatural rock gardens in themselves.

Saxifraga ‘Athena’

Saxifraga cochlearis ‘Minor’

Saxifraga oppositifolia ‘Florissa’

The genus Saxifraga is quite large, comprising a wide range of mostly perennial plants, many of which are alpines. According to the Saxifraga Society there are some 480 known species and countless garden hybrids. The sections that are of garden interest are: the ‘mossies’ (section Saxifraga), the ‘silvers (section Ligulatae) and the Kabschia and Engleria subsections (of section Porphyrion).

Saxifraga ‘Allendale Charm’

Saxifraga oppositifolia ‘Theodor’

Saxifraga ‘Premsyl Orac’

Now, if I made you think I know what I’m talking about, you are wrong (in this case). When I’ll be done with the many other genera I’m working on, I’ll get to the Saxifraga too, but that might be a long time from now. Unless you really need a botanical challenge in your life, I suggest that you do like me: try to have fun growing a few of them in your rock garden.

Saxifraga ‘Penelope’

Saxifraga ex. Porteous

Saxifraga ‘Jana’

Saxifraga ‘Dana’

And of course, I came home with my ‘Romeo’ (and a carload of tufa stones), hope our romance will last a bit longer…

Saxifraga ‘Romeo’

For the connoisseurs, I cannot end without showing a real alpine gem: Dionysia tapetoides – a cliff-dweller, native from Afghanistan, hard to grow and equally hard to find.

Dionysia tapetoides flowering at Wrightman Alpine Nursery

March 24, 2013