A Sense of Place

One of my favourite plants is a lovely Agave I discovered as an off-shoot of A. angustifolia var. marginata.  Unlike its parent it was heavily variegated with the cream coloured edges of its parent but with jade coloured centres to the leaves.  It has taken close to a decade to grow it on to the fine plant it is today. I posted the picture below on a Facebook group called "Planet Variegated Plant" and received a reply saying it was very much like A. angustifolia 'Mr. Woodrow', and on searching for an image for Mr. W. it certainly seems to be identical, making me think that this is a fairly common sport of the original plant. Anyway what do you think? do you see any variation? My sport of Agave angustifolia var. marginata. 'Mr. Woodrow'

Here are some of my favourite Hellebores, and you can see from my choice that I am still faithful to some of my oldest plants even when new varieties have been bred with clearer colours, up-facing flowers and doubles. Two of these are newer O'Byrne hybrids ( the darker double is 'Onyx Odessey' and one with  dark pink veins is  from the 'Cherry Blossom'  seed strain). All the other flowers are from plants that I've had in the garden for 10 years or more. Clear whites and yellows along with mixes of pink and jade  green.

At the beginning of this month I posted some pictures of  Cyclamen repandum and relatives. Some of these were C. balearicum, which usually have rather dull white or almost grey flowers, but I was happy to see one that had pink blooms with a darker "nose". Since then it has continued to impress me not only with its unusual colour but also by the fact that it's flowering machine. This one is definitely a keeper! Add caption

 This is the last chance this year to enjoy the amazing patterns made by vines as they move up and along any vertical surface. In just a few days from now, these graphic lines will disappear beneath new shiny foliage.

Crocus and Hellebore by Cedric Morris

When Winter seems endless, I take off with a car-load of friends to spend an hour a Richters Herbs in Goodwood, just outside Toronto. It is a real treat to enjoy the warmth, light and fragrance at a time when only the hardiest of early Spring flowers have shown themselves outside. One of the many attractive garden-worthy plants in bloom right now are Salvia greggii and its hybrids.  David Leeman tweedy and bow-tied considering the purchase of a variety of mint. Mojitos anyone?

In my post "Cyclamen, The Late Bloomers", I referred to Cyclamen balearicum and C. repandum as having modest flowers; at that time only a few had bloomed and they were all small and coloured in a dull, almost grey/white. Since then C. repandum has bloomed pink with darker toned nose, and one of my C. balearicumsis has also produced an even more stunning pink flower with similar darker nose.. So at the very end of the Cyclamen season I have been contradicted and have to apologize to the whole repandrum race. The usual colour of most Cyclamen balearicum. I think this must be a fairly unusual colour for C. balearicum. Cyclamen repandrum are not too shabby either.