Flowering Summer Plants Cyclamen colchicum, purpurascens, Weldenia candida.

Flowering Summer Plants.

The first is Cyclamen colchicum stays an evergreen in my glass house as I have not been brave enough to put it in the garden yet. Beautiful thick textured leaves with little points on the edges of the leaves like C. purpurascens fatrense (Plain green leaves). C. colchicum has always been lumped under Cyclamen purpurascens but it comes from the south-eastern Black Sea area Colchis where it derives its name from. It was Botanized by the Russian botanist Nicolai Michailovich Alboff in 1895 and Christopher Grey-Wilson has also published papers to put C. colchicum as a distinct species. Seed is from the dutch company Green Ice, and you will find more information in the book Genus Cyclamen.

Cyclamen purpurascens growing beautifully in the garden and setting seed in this garden, which I struggled with in my other garden. Green Ice was selling 100 seed of C. purpurascens for a special price a few years ago.

Cyclamen purpurascens 'Album' also from Green Ice seed company growing beautifully in the garden. The founding members Barbara and Philip used to quote "You can have Cyclamen flowering every month of the year in Australia" and I would agree with them if I could get C. rohlfsianum to flower.

Another stunning plant is Weldenia candida a group of us imported from New Zealand many years ago. A genus first found in a crater of the Volcan de Afua, Guatemala and since discovered in Mexico.
I grow mine next to Cyclamen graecum in the garden in a hot sunny position and in the winter it is covered with cling wrap on a wire frame to stop it getting too much rain, snow and hail in the winter only, Lynn and Otto lost their original plants from snow or too much wet. It is propagated by root cuttings, or cuttings in Autumn using hormone powder #3 and into course perlite, and kept just moist in Winter where it will nearly die away but shoot away in Spring leave in the perlite until well established roots form and then pot up, don't be in a rush to pot it up too early.

Sometimes you can't help having favourites in the garden, and I just love this Anemonopsis macrophylla 'Album' from Scottich Rock Garden seed exchange. it is such a strong grower and the flowers are exquisite. Woodland conditions, with not a lot of sun as the whole plant burns.

I have recently put this Campanula garganica 'Dickson's Gold' into the garden and it is flourishing. I kept it in the glass house thinking it was fragile, but it is very hardy. I purchased it from a NSW Nursery that has since closed down they had imported some lovely plants.

Gentiana prolata we bought this Gentian in New Zealand but could not bring it home because it was not on our 1st import permit, it was in full flower and we left the plant with Leslie Cox to look after and send us some seed when it was ready. Lesley collected the seed and sent it to Otto who then passed some on to me,  and as happens a lot with me only one seed germinated. I have planted it into a trough and seems to be quite hardy and has seeded it's self into the trough. Not easy to find much information on this Gentian but in Josef Halda's book on The Genus Gentiana he say's it is from Bhutan, India (Sikkim) and Nepal, on open grassy slopes, mossy tussocks in wet meadows.