Roof garden: Part 1

Sorry I should have posted this in Winter 2014-15 instead of Winter 2015-16


In anticipation of Spring along with an undeniable craving for more plants around me I think I got a bit carried away buying bulbs, seeds and seedlings to grow. On the heater (which I do not use) under one window amidst the African violets (Saintpaulia) are some Daffodils (Narcissus) and Grape hyacinths (Muscari neglectum), not to mention to Begonias which I am still waiting to see signs of life from.

So with one window chock full of plants already I pretty much did the same to the other. Here (above) I have Asiatic Lilies (Lilium), Siberian Irises (Iris sibirica), Dicentras (Lamprocapnos spectablis), Aquellegias and Fuscias.

I also have more pots of lily bulbs on top of my cupboard.

What can I say they were on sale and my green fingers started itching when I saw them. Okay there were several other reasons. One being that I wanted to be able to get photos of more plants as well as more varieties within each genus or even species (variations and sub species). Another reason was that having the plant myself would mean that I could be in a better position to photograph it at leisure not to mention manipulate it better and even cut the flowers and or pull the whole plant up to photograph its root structure etc.
Basically owning a plant gives me much greater flexibility, freedom and control over what and how I could photograph it especially if I want to take more detailed photos showing specific characteristics of certain plants. I also wanted to be able to show the planting and growth process.

Then as you can see how things were getting a bit crowd with onion and garlic bulbs, Hostas, Dutch irises and Glorisia lilyies and fuscias e inside which is why it was getting a bit crowded.

On the window sill outside I put some Nasturtiums that I had transplanted from their seeding tray into some planting troughs. I was worried about the cold but the seem to be doing fine so far. The daytime lows are around 10 degrees Celsius which is why due to our fridge being too small for the number of people in our flat, I often put milk outside on those few occasions I buy milk. So far the plants I have decided to risk outside seem to be holding up.

Binomial Name: Saintpaulia

Common names: African Violet (English); Violet African (French); (Samoan); 

Taxonomic hierarchy: 

Kingdom: Plantae - Plants

Subkingdom: Viridaeplantae – Green plants

Infrakingdom: Streptophyta – Land plants

Superdivision: Embryophytea – 
Division: Tracheophyta – Vascular plants, tracheophytes

Subdivision: Spermatophytina – Spermatophytes (seed plants)

Infradivision: Angiospermae – Angiosperms (flowering plants)

Class: Magnoliopsida – Diocotyledons

Superorder: Asteranae – Asterids

Order: Lamiales –

Family: Gesneriaceae – 

Genus: Saintpaulia – 

Species: Saintpaulia inonatha, Saintpaulia rupicola, Saintpaulia brevipilosa

Notes: 

• I am using the taxonomical classification system used by ITIS (Intergrated Taxonomic Information System). I have decided to use this system in order to avoid confusion as well as because it offers a comprehensive hierarchy from kingdom right through to subspecies whereas other sources only go as far as order or  provide the names of some of the higher taxonomical ranks but only indicate "unclassified" rather than providing the rank.
• When and where possible I will endeavour to include alternatives classifications although  I may limit this to occasions where an opportunity arises to discuss the reason for the different classifications.
• Taxonomical data used in this post was retrieved [February 11 2015], from the Integrated Taxonomic Information System on-line database, http://www.itis.gov.

References:

Books:

• 
  

On-line sources:

• Integrated Taxonomic Information System: Entry for Saintpaulia
• Integrated Taxonomic Information System: Entry for Narcissus
• Integrated Taxonomic Information System: Entry for Muscari neglectum
• Integrated Taxonomic Information System: Entry for Begonia
• Integrated Taxonomic Information System: Entry for Lilium
• Integrated Taxonomic Information System: Entry for Iris sibirica
• Integrated Taxonomic Information System: Entry for Dicentras spectablis
• Integrated Taxonomic Information System: Entry for Dicentras spectablis alba
• Integrated Taxonomic Information System: Entry for Aquellegias
• Integrated Taxonomic Information System: Entry for Fuscias.
• Integrated Taxonomic Information System: Entry for
• Integrated Taxonomic Information System: Entry for
• Integrated Taxonomic Information System: Entry for
• Integrated Taxonomic Information System: Entry for
•  
• United States Department of Agriculture: Entry for Celosia argenta L.
• The Plant List: Entry for Celosia
• University of Tennessee Herbarium Entry for Celosia argentea
• 
  
• Texas A & M University: Entry for Celosia (Celosia cristata)
• Missouri Botanical Garden: Entry for Saintpaulia ionatha
• 
  
• Dave's Garden Entry for Celosia
• Grow African Violets
• Wikipedia: Entry for
• Wikipedia: Entry for
• Wikipedia: Entry for
• Wikipedia: Entry for
• Wikipedia: Entry for
• Wikipedia: Entry for Asparagales
• Wikipedia: Entry for Asparagaceae
• Wikipedia: Entry for Amaryllidaceae
• Wikipedia: Entry for Iridaceae
• Wikipedia: Entry for
• Wikipedia: Entry for
• Wikipedia: Entry for Iris sibirica
• Wikipedia: Entry for Lilium
• Wikipedia: Entry for
• Wikipedia: Entry for
• Wikipedia: Entry for
• Wikipedia: Entry for Liliales
• Wikipedia: Entry for Liliaceae
• Wikipedia: Entry for Muscari
• Wikipedia: Entry for Muscari neglectum
• Wikipedia: Entry for
• Wikipedia: Entry for
• Wikipedia: Entry for
• Wikipedia: Entry for
• Wikipedia: Entry for
• Wikipedia: Entry for Saintpaulia
• Wikipedia: Entry for Gesneriaceae
• Wikipedia: Entry for Lamiales
• Wikipedia: Entry for Asterids
• Wikipedia: Entry for Amaranthaceae
• Wikipedia: Entry for Caryophllales

Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters Blog by Vincent Albert Vermeulen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Based on a work at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

My other blogs

· Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters (on plants, animals as well as gardening, conservation and environmental matters): http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.com/
· The Blood of Souls (language, translation and etymology) : http://thebloodofsouls.blogspot.com/

· Whiskers on Kittens (Life with Kittens and Cats in general) : http://whiskersonkittens-vincent.blogspot.com/

Planting some Garden Onions, Allium cepa

 Garden Onion Allium cea -
Two red onions and a regular onion

During February while browsing through the selection of bulbs, seeds, seedlings and shoots I came across some packets of onion bulbs. They only had the red and brown varieties but since I tend to use red onions in my salads I picked up a bag of Red Baron seed bulbs.Since it was still cold outside and we'd had hail and generally typical winter weather I thought it best not to plant anything outside. Given the limited room in my bedroom I decided that to give the onions a head start I could try planting them in a cell tray and then transplant them later. That way by the time they had some leaves and a nice healthy set of roots I could transplant them into a bigger container and then put them outside on the roof. By then the weather should be more clement.

Garden Onion Allium cepa

The other thing was that I wanted to try out this mycorrhizal fungi preparation which is supposed to help the plants' growth by developing a secondary set of roots. In a nut shell mycorrhizal fungi have a symbiotic relationship with their hosts. In essence it improved the ability of their hosts to extract nutrients from the soil.
The whole topic is quite fascinating so I will be doing at least one post dedicated to discussing these fascinating organisms and their relationship with plants. That is aside from the other posts I have planned on fungi. So keep an eye out for these.

Garden Onion Allium cepa

A few weeks after I planted the bulbs in the seed tray most had sprouted leaves and when I pulled one up to check its roots I was pleased to discover that it had a nice set. I ended up potting that in a small pot all by itself. Then a few weeks later I got some planting troughs and transplanted the rest. I filled two planting troughs with ten (10) each and popped them out onto the roof.

Onions are in the two plastic terracotta pots on the right.

The handful left got distributed into other pots with other plants which will make things interesting considering I did not keep tabs which post they went into other than that they were mainly with other bulbs. I still have some more bulbs left and have been trying to decide if I should plant them too or at least pop them into a cell tray to at least get them started while I figure out what to do with them or where to put them because at the end of the day what am I going to do with thirty plus onions come harvest time?


Genus Name: Allium cepa
Common names: Onion, Garden onion (English);  (Danish);  (Dutch);  (German);  (French);  (Italian);  (Spanish);(Samoan);

Taxonomic hierarchy: 

Kingdom: Plantae - Plants

Subkingdom: Viridaeplantae – Green plants

Infrakingdom: Streptophyta – Land plants

Superdivision: Embryophytea – 
Division: Tracheophyta – Vascular plants, tracheophytes

Subdivision: Spermatophytina – Spermatophytes (seed plants)

Infradivision: Angiospermae – Angiosperms (flowering plants)

Class: Magnoliopsida – Diocotyledons

Superorder: Lilianae – Monocots, monocotyledons

Order: Asparagales –

Family: Amaryllidaceae – 

Subfamily: Lilioideae – 
Tribe: Amaryllidioeae – 
Genus: Allium – 

Species: Allium cepa

Notes: 

• I am using the taxonomical classification system used by ITIS (Intergrated Taxonomic Information System). I have decided to use this system in order to avoid confusion as well as because it offers a comprehensive hierarchy from kingdom right through to subspecies whereas other sources only go as far as order or  provide the names of some of the higher taxonomical ranks but only indicate "unclassified" rather than providing the rank.
• When and where possible I will endeavour to include alternatives classifications although  I may limit this to occasions where an opportunity arises to discuss the reason for the different classifications.
• Taxonomical data used in this post was retrieved [February 26 2015], from the Integrated Taxonomic Information System on-line database, http://www.itis.gov.

References:

Books:

• 
  
•  

Articles:

• Gianinazzi-Pearson, Vivienne "Plant cell responses to Arbuscular Mycorrhzial Fungi: getting to the roots of the symbiosis" in The Plant Cel, Vol 8, 1887-1883, October 1996. American Society of Plant Physiologists. P

PDF

PDF


pdf

On-line sources:

• Integrated Taxonomic Information System: Entry for Allium cepa
• Kew Royal Botanical gardens: Entry for Allium cepa
• United States Department of Agriculture: Entry for
• The Plant List: Entry for 
• University of Tennessee Herbarium Entry for
• Missouri Botanical Garden: Entry for 
•  Thompson & Morgan: How to grow garlic
• NHS: Is garlic and everyday superfood?
• Dave's Garden Entry for 
• Good food: Entry for Garlic
• Wikipedia: Entry for Asparagales
• Wikipedia: Entry for Amaryllidaceae
• Wikipedia: Entry for Allium
• Wikipedia: Entry for Allioidea
• Wikipedia: Entry for Allium ampeloprasum
• Wikipedia: Entry for Elephant garlic
• Wikipedia: Entry for Onion
• Wikipedia: Entry for Garlic
• Wikipedia: Entry for Infra-specific
• Wikipedia: Entry for 
• Wikipedia: Entry for Arbuscular mycorrhiza
• Wikipedia: Entry for Basidiomycota
• Wikipedia: Entry for Ascomycota
• Wikipedia: Entry for Zygomycota
• Wikipedia: Entry for Glomeromycota 
• Wikipedia: Entry for 

http://treesforlife.org.uk/forest/ecology/mycorrhizas/
http://www.thenaturalgardener.co.uk/mycorrhizal_fungi.php

http://www.rootgrow.co.uk/mycorrhizal-fungi.html
https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=633


Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters Blog by Vincent Albert Vermeulen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Based on a work at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

My other blogs

· Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters (on plants, animals as well as gardening, conservation and environmental matters): http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.com/
· The Blood of Souls (language, translation and etymology) : http://thebloodofsouls.blogspot.com/

· Whiskers on Kittens (Life with Kittens and Cats in general) : http://whiskersonkittens-vincent.blogspot.com/

Fort Royal Gardens: # 8 - 2014

As you move away from the pond and the Mirror Sculpture there is an area with shrubs and trees among which I found these plants with white flowers. They look like the pinkish ones further below. I have no idea what they are called.

Then on your way back to the main entrance you will find scatterings of snow bells along the way.

Heading back out the main entrance of the Fort Royal Gardens.


Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters Blog by Vincent Albert Vermeulen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.


Based on a work at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

My other blogs

· Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters (on plants, animals as well as gardening, conservation and environmental matters): http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.com/
· The Blood of Souls (language, translation and etymology) : http://thebloodofsouls.blogspot.com/

· Whiskers on Kittens (Life with Kittens and Cats in general) : http://whiskersonkittens-vincent.blogspot.com/

Fort Royal Gardens: # 7 - 2014

After you pass the pond you find more crocuses, mainly assorted shades of purple with a scattering of whites and yellows.

Artwork consisting of a maze of mirrored panels in Fort Royal Gardens.

Crocuses reflected in mirrored panels

ThTh

Fort Royal House in background with artwork in foreground

Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters Blog by Vincent Albert Vermeulen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Based on a work at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

My other blogs

· Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters (on plants, animals as well as gardening, conservation and environmental matters): http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.com/
· The Blood of Souls (language, translation and etymology) : http://thebloodofsouls.blogspot.com/

· Whiskers on Kittens (Life with Kittens and Cats in general) : http://whiskersonkittens-vincent.blogspot.com/

Fort Royal Gardens: # 5 - 2014

More Daffodils, crocuses, snowdrops and other flowers. These are just around the pond which did not have much to look at given that it is winter other than some vegetation that I was unable to identify. I assume that there are water-lilies after all what is a garden pond without water-lilies or  lotuses.

Daffodils by the pond in Fort Royal Gardens, Bristol, United Kingdom

In beds around the pond were assorted daffodils (but a miniature variety) as well as snowdrops and some other plants that I have yet to identify.

Daffodils by the pond in Fort Royal Gardens, Bristol, United Kingdom

Interestingly Daffodils and Snowdrops not only belong to the same Order: Asparagales and Family: Amaryllidaceae but to the same Subfamily: Amaryllidoideae, as well.

Daffodils by the pond in Fort Royal Gardens, Bristol, United Kingdom

Daffodils by the pond in Fort Royal Gardens, Bristol, United Kingdom

Daffodils by the pond in Fort Royal Gardens, Bristol, United Kingdom

Daffodils and Snowdrops with other unknown plants by the pond in Fort Royal Gardens, Bristol, United Kingdom

Snowdrops and Unknown plants by the pond in Fort Royal Gardens, Bristol, United Kingdom

Daffodils and Snowdrops with Unidentified plants by the pond in Fort Royal Gardens, Bristol, United Kingdom

Daffodils by the pond in Fort Royal Gardens, Bristol, United Kingdom

Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters Blog by Vincent Albert Vermeulen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Based on a work at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

My other blogs

· Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters (on plants, animals as well as gardening, conservation and environmental matters): http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.com/
· The Blood of Souls (language, translation and etymology) : http://thebloodofsouls.blogspot.com/

· Whiskers on Kittens (Life with Kittens and Cats in general) : http://whiskersonkittens-vincent.blogspot.com/

Pink and white Hippeastrums blooming

Finally some of the Hippeastrum bulbs that I managed to recover have flowered.

Hippeastrum

I was quite surprised as the bulbs are still smallish and definitely nowhere near the size of the ones I had before when those flowered.

Hippeastrum

 I have about twenty bulbs which are still small and might take a while to flower. But I assure you of one thing the are definitely worth the wait. Although these ones are clearly suffering a bit.

Hippeastrum

Hippeastrum

Hippeastrum

Hippeastrum

Hippeastrum

Taxonomy

• Order: Asparagales – Family Amaryllidaceae – Subfamily: Amaryllidoideae – Genus: Hippeastrum – Species: Unknown

Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters Blog by Vincent Albert Vermeulen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Based on a work at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

My other blogs

· Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters (on plants, animals as well as gardening, conservation and environmental matters): http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.com/

· The Blood of Souls (language, translation and etymology) : http://thebloodofsouls.blogspot.com/

· Whiskers on Kittens (Life with Kittens and Cats in general) : http://whiskersonkittens-vincent.blogspot.com/