Nadia and I had no agenda this week, so this report is pretty unfocused, but it is almost all in the North Garden. I'll start with some signage I like. This Made in the Shade sign is perfect - says what all is there, with a diagram showing where. No need to go looking for a label. I'm a big fan of Tricyrtis, this one the cultivar 'Empress'. Here is a beautiful new Wetlands viewing platform, and two new signs.
Big discovery this week was chicory. There were no botanical names on any of this, but radicchio, endive and chicory are all Cichorium, and from what I can tell from reading, all Cichorium intybus. We kept asking "what's this" and the answer was chicory for all of this. I'm into purple stems this month!
Here are some more purple stems, on basil, Ocimum basilicum, maybe the cultivar 'Cinnamon'. Nearby, in the Physic Garden, lots of hips on the Rosa rubiginosa beckoned from the far side of the garden. From hips to hops, these are my only photos not from the North Garden. This hop plant, Humulus lupulus, is at the entrance plaza.
The Arbutus menziesii at the edge of the BC garden has an impressive wasp nest. And a lot of fruits. Down at the far end, in the Austrailian section, one of my favourite trees, Eucalyptus rubida, is growing fast and losing its nice red bark on the trunk. Another favourite, the Franklinia alatamaha, has a good covering of flowers. I noted one year that it seemed to only do two flowers at a time, but it has got past that stage now. I posted some blossom photos a couple weeks ago at Photography in the Garden - tour with Daniel Mosquin September 6, 2018.
Here are a few from the Carolinian Garden. The only Rhus copallinus fruits posted previously were not coloured up yet. I don't know if this is as unruly as Rhus typhyna, (hmm, why is it R. copallinum but R. typhyna?), but it does seem to have that kind of tendency. Eric La Fountaine came along just as we were wondering what this Ilex verticillata was. All the fruits seem to be concentrated on one limb. Speaking of unruly, I don't know that the Linaria vulgaris, common toadflax (I think I have ID'd this correctly) is supposed to be in this area, but it's pretty cute. I see that it is considered a noxious invasive in Alberta - https://abinvasives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/FS-CommonToadflax.pdf, but e-Flora BC doesn't have any indication to that effect.
Here are some blues. Caryopteris incana. Ceratostigma plumbaginoides. And a yellow. Azorella trifurcata fruits.
