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bondjam33 70M
877 posts
5/14/2021 12:02 pm
Time to plant out hanging baskets and plant up the 'blumenpyramide' on the deck.

One of our favourite parts of the garden is the display of hanging baskets, the tubs, the troughs and planters and the pot plants stacked on the decking area. We love them for their colour and the sheer exuberance of the flowers.

Million bells and pansies/violas make an instant impact. The effect will change dramatically later on when the trailing nepeta and creeping Jenny grow down in a cascade with trailing fuchsias, surfinias and geraniums.

The display on the deck is easy change as the plants flower more or less profusely during the season.
In the front garden the fern which looked dead only a month ago is sprouting new fronds as though they were going out of fashion with the newer fern below. The camelia has enjoyed a largely frost free end of April and first half of May so the blooms have been largely untouched by frost.
Time to enjoy Kaffee und Kuchen on the deck after all the hard work.
The last photo is a quiz question. Name that flower. I know at least one regular contributor to blogs will have no difficulty naming it but I wonder how many others will ever have seen one? Mrs J has grown two of them from seed (with some difficulty I might add) and we are hoping to take our own seed later in the season to grow a few more

















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bondjam33 70M
840 posts
5/14/2021 12:05 pm

Hanging basket planting now in full swing if you will pardon the pun.


Diane1974 67F

5/14/2021 12:30 pm

Gorgeous !!!
We Have Kutchen Quite Often
Our Local Bakery Makes Many Delicious
Flavors


Maudie1 74F
8151 posts
5/14/2021 1:38 pm

Fabulous selection of beautiful flowers, tended with love and care. . I have no idea what the mystery plant is. It's very unusual looking, reminds me of long pointy finger nails.


lilium6 74F
4498 posts
5/14/2021 2:08 pm

Cheerful flowers - I allow my pansies free rein in the garden as well as the cheerful calendulas (although they do multiply quickly), and thanks to you, the beautiful borage I planted now has many offspring popping up somewhat randomly, lol.

Gauging by its leaves, I think the plant belongs to the pea/legume family. Is it clianthus puniceus rosea, commonly known as 'Lobster Claw/Kaka Beak'?


bondjam33 replies on 5/16/2021 8:32 am:
I should have banned any New Zealanders from guessing lol. We mailed the seed back to the UK from NZ when we were there almost 5 years ago but ther were only 5 or 6 seeds in the packet. It has taken 3 years to flower but we have two strong, healthy plants which are big enough to plant out in the border so we are hoping to collect our own seed this summer.

MrsJoe 76F
17306 posts
5/14/2021 3:36 pm

I envy you those hanging baskets. It is so windy here that they would swing wildly until they fell. I'll plant a few pots of flowers on the patio and definitely will have some pansies. I don't know what your mystery flower is, but it does look like a lobster's claw.

Be a prism, spreading God's light and love, not a mirror reflecting the world's hatred.


Hawkslayer 88M
13297 posts
5/14/2021 5:53 pm

    Quoting lilium6:
    Cheerful flowers - I allow my pansies free rein in the garden as well as the cheerful calendulas (although they do multiply quickly), and thanks to you, the beautiful borage I planted now has many offspring popping up somewhat randomly, lol.

    Gauging by its leaves, I think the plant belongs to the pea/legume family. Is it clianthus puniceus rosea, commonly known as 'Lobster Claw/Kaka Beak'?

I have to agree with you, it looks like a Clianthus to me too.

It only takes a drop of ink to make a million people think. There are many stories.


bondjam33 70M
840 posts
5/16/2021 9:30 am

    Quoting MrsJoe:
    I envy you those hanging baskets. It is so windy here that they would swing wildly until they fell. I'll plant a few pots of flowers on the patio and definitely will have some pansies. I don't know what your mystery flower is, but it does look like a lobster's claw.
The wind blows straight up the garden here so I have to close up the hooks on which the baskets hang and bolt the frames to the wall but so far ours have survived well enough. We sit on the deck every sunny afternoon so we like to have as many hanging baskets and troughs as possible. So far we have 11 hanging baskets, 5 troughs, 5 planters, 2 olive trees, 2 citrus bushes and 27 individual potted plants stacked in 3 sets of 9 on or around the deck.


bondjam33 70M
840 posts
5/16/2021 9:31 am

    Quoting Hawkslayer:
    I have to agree with you, it looks like a Clianthus to me too.
It is the Kaka beak plant (Clianthus puniceus). We have grown two bushes from a packet of 5-6 seeds we bought in NZ and mailed back home. We mailed them back as we were going on to Australia from NZ and would not have been able to get any plant material through customs.
With any luck we should be able to collect our own seed this year.


bondjam33 70M
840 posts
5/16/2021 9:36 am

    Quoting Maudie1:
    Fabulous selection of beautiful flowers, tended with love and care. . I have no idea what the mystery plant is. It's very unusual looking, reminds me of long pointy finger nails.
Lilium knew it straight away but she has an advantage as it is a New Zealand plant called Clianthus Puniceus - more commonly Kaka Beak or Lobster Claw as it resembles both.

The plant is critically endangered, growing on only one small island off North Island NZ but it is cultivated in a few specialist gardens in the UK.
We mailed a small packet of seeds (about 5-6 only) back from NZ last time we were there. We were going on to Cairns in Australia and would not have been allowed to take in ANY plant material.
So far we have two healthy bushes and we hope to collect seed this summer.


lilium6 74F
4498 posts
5/16/2021 2:56 pm

Hi Bond - nice to know it is the Lobster Claw/Kaka Beak. In my defence, I didn't know what it was. I was truthful when stating I thought the leaves resembled those of the legume family - from there I searched online for its indentity. I was reasonably confident I had identified the mystery flower. For the record, I am not a New Zealander - I have Australian citizenship and moved across to NZ five years ago. Much of NZ is new to me including the Maori people/culture as well as flora & fauna unique to NZ - in some ways I am a stranger in a strange land; a 'strange land' in which I feel a sense of ease.

Glad to hear you're having success with the clianthus.