New Plants Episode 905
Ivynettle recently posted about all her new plants which made me think “wait a minute, I haven’t posted about all my new plants in ages!”. So now you’re stuck with a post about my new plants. We’ll start off with this adorable begonia. I have no idea what variety it is, how big it will get or if it will have flowers worth mentioning but the lime green foliage with the maple shape is enough for me! Plus the maroon edges are pretty cool too.
I couldn’t resist this one either…I love the brown netting on the leaves. This is one plant that I don’t mind having all the foliage turn towards the light because when the light shines through it looks just like stained glass from the backside.
The Northshore African Violet society held their show/sale at the Chicago Botanic Gardens last week…and I ended up with this lovely Kohleria ‘Red Ryder’. Swoon! The flowers are huge (relatively speaking), they’re about the size of a silver dollar and the leaves are likewise larger than I’ve seen on a Kohleria before (about the size of a coaster and a nice chocolate brown).
I know this is an orchid, I just can’t remember which one. I’m pretty sure it’ll get spikes of redish flowers that aren’t terribly showy. I mostly like the foliage of it anyways. It was a steal for $3 in a tray of “assorted foliage plants” that also had tiny bananas (so hard to resist), prince of orange philodendrons and several gorgeous white stemmed aglaonemas. Believe me when I say it was hard to chose just one!
Moving outside we have Corylopsis spicata ‘Aurea’ or yellow leaved winterhazel. I’m super excited about this one even though it doesn’t look like much now. It was only $20! Such a steal! I had a really hard time choosing between this, a Ginkgo biloba ‘Gnome’ and a Cornus sericea that had gorgeously contorted foliage. I can’t recall the name for the life of me though.
I normally don’t likeAstrantia major but this one was too pretty to pass up. The cultivar is ‘Sunningdale Variegated’. My only complaint is that I wish it had pink flowers instead of white. I’m just not a fan of white flowers…
And last but not least we have a supposedly hardy Echium! Echium amoenum ‘Red Feathers’ is supposed to be fully zone 5 hardy. I’m a little afraid that this plant is monocarpic and will die after flowering so I’m going to let it go to seed and hope that it’ll survive in one way or another. I’ve been too busy being jealous of all the bloggers out west who keep posting about their echicums so I didn’t want to be left out of all the echium fun. Strangely now that I want to find all the echium posts I’ve read I can only find that one. ::sigh:: I SWEAR other people have posted about them this spring!
Last but not least I just wanted to post this picture of the roots on my echium because I find it amusing that they’re the exact same color as the flowers.
The Midwestern Jungle 
I like the first begonia – and the orchid – only to look at, though, I don’t think I’d like to grow either one. Begonias take up too much horizontal space (I prefer tall plants), and orchids and I don’t get along.
*sigh*
I miss outdoor gardening.
I’m beginning to have a horrible feeling that this might be the summer of begonias for me. I don’t know WHY but I’ve fallen in love with almost every single one I’ve seen. ::sigh:: As for orchids I’ve noticed I really only get along with ones that go dormant or are otherwise strange. I suck at phals and paphs and get bored with oncidiums really fast.
The woman in the UK I just traded plants with sent me a link to a UK nursery that sells cane begonias – and sends them to the rest of Europe, too. Sooo hard to resist!
Ack! I love cane begonias! I probably WOULDN’T be able to resist
I don’t think I’ll be able to resist all year… I just need to get rid of some other plants and free up some space first… I should probably grow and sell a batch of B. corallina to raise some money, too…
Yay for your Echium! And I think you’re smart to plan for it’s demise. I was trying to imagine what my front garden will look like in a month or two when mine are gone…
Great looking plants there, both indoor and out. Both the begonias have amazing coloration. Is the orchid sarcoglottis sceptrodes? Looks a bit like one I bought this year.
That’s the name I was looking for! I think that’s what it is, but I’m not 100% sure that’s what it is since I’ve only seen it once before.