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What is this bush/tree/plant?

Ha, beaten to the post. Bang on Sirena.

Callie - Leafster is spot-on with the cuttings...although I have had better luck taking soft tips of weigela, rather than a semi-ripe woody stem, and covering the pots with a plastic bag or lid to keep the moisture levels high.
Now is absolut6ely the right time to do it...and should soft tip cuttings not prove successful (they should root in 2-3 weeks) you can have another go with Leafsters semi-ripe cuttings a bit later, after flowering is finished. He is quite correct about avoiding stems which are in flower though - try to find a newish sprout from near the base which does not have any flowering buds.
Also, the potting medium needs to be very low nutrient - you can even use pure sand...so go for a potting mix which is mixed in with an inert substance such as sand, grit, perlite, vermiculite because we don't want to encourage fungal issues and we want good drainage. I usually just use any old pot and pop a twig in it to hold the polythene bag off the foliage of the cutting. Fasten with an elastic band to keep moisture in and place it somewhere out of full sun.
 
I wanted to grab the seeds from the beautiful purple poppies in the "so called" edible bus stop but some sod had already harvested them. Thought they'd missed one but now I'm not so sure this is a poppy. Any ideas?
c6e21b558b8b7ec4723ed65d3a487726.jpg
7a1f1aa0739c44495c08d73c77c086f8.jpg
 
Poppy seeds are tiny, I've just remembered. Wonder what these are. Weeds probably.
 
BTW campanula I vaguely remember buying some iris seeds and I think it was you that said they probably wouldn't do much so I got the tiddler to chuck them on the flower beds wherever she liked. I now have about 20 stiff single iris like leaves coming up, no idea now if its them or another load I have sown and forgotten about :D
 
Oh good for you, Ringo. Surprisingly, monocots germinate and grow quite well for me - I grow a lot of lilies from seed, and dierama - slow but gratifying. Anyone who grows ornamental alliums will surely be familiar with the millions of grass-like seedlings which appear the following year. Of course, the challenge now is keeping them going without over-zealous weeding (my usual fail). I also recall you buying them...although I suspect my scepticism related more to the ebay source which is so hit or miss as to be a bit of a crap shoot. If you lift them before the foliage dies back in Autumn, you should see tiny bulblets in place - keep them separate in a nursery bed or large pot as they can take 3-4 years to get to flowering size and are very vulnerable to being overdug/overlooked.
 
campanula said:
I also recall you buying them...although I suspect my scepticism related more to the ebay source which is so hit or miss as to be a bit of a crap shoot.
Click to expand...

I just checked my plant buying notes, they went in March 2015. My youngest will be pleased :D
Heirloom 20 Seeds Iris Germanica Bearded irises German iris purple flag Flower £1.49

Whether I manage to find and lift them will be another story. I'm going to try and do that with my dahlias in the same beds I'll try and keep a look out when I pull them in the Autumn. This is all a bit new to me, but I love it.
 
ringo said:
I This is all a bit new to me, but I love it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, me too - the seed sowing game that is. After you have murdered a few thousand innocent plants, you get a bit more insouciant about the enormous rates of attrition and it all starts to make sense why plants produce seeds in the millions. The best advice I can honestly offer is to save your own. For years, I only bought seeds from various merchants and fully accepted the high rate of failure as being down to my neglect (I am a slapdash gardener with a very short attention span) until I started saving and swapping my own whereupon almost overnight, the rates of success, even with tricksy plants, trebled. You might also consider joining one of the various plant societies such as the NCCPG (National campaign for conservation of plants group, I think) or the HPS (Hardy Plant Society - my choice for a mere £19 a year). For far less than membership of the RHS, you will have access to members seed lists - up to 25 varieties for free - more if you also make donations of seeds) and also, the HPS publishes a monthly and quarterly newsletter which is brilliant. I can hardly wait for this next listing in November as I joined just too late to make use of this years list.

Probably best to leave the iris in situ - iris germanica produces a rhizome rather than a bulb, on the surface of the soil, so should be visible enough for you to recognise them later in the year.
 
campanula said:
Yeah, me too - the seed sowing game that is. After you have murdered a few thousand innocent plants, you get a bit more insouciant about the enormous rates of attrition and it all starts to make sense why plants produce seeds in the millions. The best advice I can honestly offer is to save your own. For years, I only bought seeds from various merchants and fully accepted the high rate of failure as being down to my neglect (I am a slapdash gardener with a very short attention span) until I started saving and swapping my own whereupon almost overnight, the rates of success, even with tricksy plants, trebled. You might also consider joining one of the various plant societies such as the NCCPG (National campaign for conservation of plants group, I think) or the HPS (Hardy Plant Society - my choice for a mere £19 a year). For far less than membership of the RHS, you will have access to members seed lists - up to 25 varieties for free - more if you also make donations of seeds) and also, the HPS publishes a monthly and quarterly newsletter which is brilliant. I can hardly wait for this next listing in November as I joined just too late to make use of this years list.

Probably best to leave the iris in situ - iris germanica produces a rhizome rather than a bulb, on the surface of the soil, so should be visible enough for you to recognise them later in the year.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll look into those. I've definitely got enough on my plate trying to sort out what I've sown and grown this year for now, but if I keep on getting into like I have been now I know which direction to head, thanks :thumbs:
Yes, I'll leave the iris, I'm getting a bit better at not weeding the plants I've just sown :D
 
ringo said:
Yes, I'll leave the iris, I'm getting a bit better at not weeding the plants I've just sown :D
Click to expand...

Um, I seem to be going backwards - I recently mistook all last years honesty seedlings (the trouble with biennials) for a weedy stachys and whipped them out in the hundreds before realising my mistake...and another common one is to confuse foxglove with the weedy blue alkanet.
bad eyesight and a lethally sharp hoe is a dangerous combo.
 
I thought horsetail but I've never seen it open up into fine side branches/leaf like bamboo. I tried to grow some but I don't think the spot was wet enough.
Ta, I'll have a look at day lilies ☺
 
I've just installed Pl@ntNet on my phone, a sort of Shazam for plants :thumbs:

It thought the day liliy was a type of daffodil or a Saint Bernards Lily or an Iris pseudacorus )dragon flower).
It thought the horsetail could be about 10 things from Russian olive to pampas grass.

Not much cop yet then. I see there are other apps available, any of them any good?
 
re #739 : I wasted several weeks of my life trying to extirpate horsetail from a field so my instant reaction to that one is KILL IT WITH FIRE even if it's a different subspecies. It's not even that good looking and the invasiveness is frightening.
 
Anyone know what this wildflower is, I thought maybe fleabane or yellow oxeye daisy.Cconsulted all my wildflower books but can't find it. quite distinctive heart shaped leaves surrounding the stem. Or maybe a recent garden escapee?
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