Here is a preview of a few of the plants featured in the July garden blog. Douglas Justice ends the blog mentioning the huge variety of Old and New World salvias at the front entrance and Reception Centre patio, but of course, that's where I started. The salvia display is just beginning - two years ago Douglas wrote about the August salvias - August 2016 in the Garden - Salvia. Here is Salvia forsskaolii in the background, and I'm not sure what in the foreground - how about Salvia x sylvestris? In the water-wise display in the north garden is Salvia nemorosa 'Caradonna'. I think this is the correct spelling of the species name. Crocosmia was mentioned in the African garden. Here is Crocosmia 'Lucifer' on the entrance plaza. I asked everyone I could find to ask for the name of this plant, what I would call today's feature plant on the entrance plaza, and no-one knew. Finally at home, I decided to lookup Malvaceae, found the name Sidalcea, and found my posting of these from 2012: July 17, 2012 - features of the day, and more flowers. I see S. hendersonii as being planted in this location; at the time, @Eric La Fountaine wrote "The Sidalcea is one of two propagated from plants collected in Oregon. It came as either S. campestris or S. virgata (this one possibly a hybrid?). They are not labelled yet and I don't know which is which. Both accessions were planted at the entrance." There probably is a label by now, but it's hard to find these things. Was S. hendersonii the decision, or is there more than one species here? The first two photos were from last week.
In the Carolinian Forest Garden, Hydrangea quercifolia are just about open. We thought these were nice: But these we saw these H. quercifolia 'Flemygea' , Snow Queen oak-leaf hydrangea sparkling in the distance. These are very nice. Third photo is really for the bark. Here are two other hydrangeas in bloom now, both at the trellis next to the food garden. Hydrangea anomala subsp. petiolaris and H. macrophylla 'Lilacina'.
Douglas Justice's July blog is up now at July 2018 in the Garden | UBC Botanical Garden. You can see several good photos there by clicking on the featured photo, which brings up a flickr album of Douglas's photos related to this blog. Today, the Botany Photo of the Day is on Sidalcea hendersonii: Sidalcea hendersonii! There's lots to learn about it there and in the linked sources. I hope I get to go back to find the different perfect and female flowers - note that it's not been stated yet what species are the ones on the plaza, but they should still exhibit the gynodioecy.
My visiting friend Elena was so impressed with the garden on Thursday that she wanted to go back today on her last day in town, so I got to check out these flowers again. Just as the BPotD says, there are smaller darker pink flowers and larger paler-coloured ones. We weren't able to tell if there were different species though, so I'm not certain that I'm comparing flowers from the same species. The first photo below shows female flowers; second photo shows definitely a bisexual flower on the bottom right; I'm not sure if the other flower is male, which is not supposed to be an option here; there isn't any visible pistil, but maybe it's just hidden. Here are bisexual flowers on plants with no fruits And female flowers on plants with fruits And a fruit. They might not get much larger than this. I'm not sure, and querying "Sidalcea fruits" brings up a photo that looks somewhat like this and a lot of tomatoes and peppers, or strawberries, depending on the search engine.
I checked out the Rhododendron auriculatum, which are not yet in bloom, but since the attribute references the "ears" on the leaves, they're always worth a visit. But then I found this Rhododendron phaeochrysum var. levistratum, which really should have got to be named for its ears. Here is a bit of the irrigation work Douglas mentioned in the blog.
In the alpine garden, the Lobelia tupa is in bloom now, right next to Eryngium eburneum, one of my favourites. It's the leaves I like on the Escallonia 'Newport Dwarf'.
They're coming. There are some open flowers, way up top. Another from the blog is Hydrangea macrophylla 'Mariesii Perfecta'. The fertile flowers are over one centimeter, which seems large but I'm not sure if it's as unusual as it seems to me. The Hydrangea macrophylla 'Lilacina', shown in the second posting in this thread, looks like this today. Well, it's past its peak and most flowers do not look this good today. In colour it's similar to 'Mariesii Perfecta', but the flowers are not as large, with fertile flowers being more like a half centimeter in diameter. Leaves seem a little darker.
Starting at the west end of the Arbour/Contemporary Garden planting near the Physic Garden hedge and moving eastward, the first hydrangeas are Hydrangea anomala subsp. petiolaris; these have finished blooming now, sterile flowers are all nodding. The peak bloom photo is in the second posting in this thread. Hydrangea macrophylla 'Mariesii Perfecta', in the previous posting. Next is this groovy pink one that I think has to be Hydrangea macrophylla 'Frau Nabuko'. Between this and the H. macrophylla 'Lilacina' is a Rhododendron yakushimanum with very nice leaves.
For something totally different, back to bird-pollinated flowers. The sunbird-pollinated Crocosmia photo is in the first posting. I don't know sunbirds, and I haven't seen any hummingbirds hanging out around these Epilobium canum, I'm sorry to say. The setting seems kind-of exposed for those birds. These plants, common name zauschneria or California fuchsia, are in the North American section of the alpine garden. Here is the species, E. canum subsp. canum. E. canum subsp. canum 'Sir Cedric Morris' has much narrower leaves. These are marked with red, as if sunburnt. I don't know if that is a characteristic of the cultivar or not. These also come in white - E. canum 'Albiflora'. I didn't find the label on this, so was planning to call it E. canum 'Pink Flowered Selection'. It turns out there really is one on the database with that name. I have room for one more photo. This Cotula from the Asteracea family was nearby but in the African section. Common names are water button, buttonweed. The flower buttons remind me of tansy and are about that size.
Thank you, Margot! I have corrected it. I had it right in the filename. You know this plant? It's so sweet.
