My Plant Collection

	O hi! Welcome to my little corner of the internet. I downsized the site again, and decided to focus on just my plant collection. You can read everything else about me over on Facebook and Google Plus. No more stuff here about kitties, bears, tennis, music, or whatever. Just plants! This project started July 23, 2011. It will take me a long time to finish the database, and even longer to add the photos. Meanwhile, just enjoy browsing through my ever growing list of plants. If you want to contact me about a particular plant, my email address is dkramb@badbear.com ~ Dennis Kramb, 7/23/11
Now showing entries within the Family 12/14/11 - I have an affinity for all things Australian, or in this case New Zealandian. When seeds of Xeronema callistemon came up in PBS BX 277, it was an absolute impulse buy. I tried germinating the seeds in various conditions, media, and temperatures but absolutely none of them gemrinated. If I have any seeds left over I may try again, but I'd be foolish to expect any different results. - 12/14/11 - I do love my front yard full of native Violas! And now there are patches of them spreading in the backyard too. The trick has been to raise the mower blades so that the flowers and seed pods are not removed until they've had a chance to mature. I also love the fact that they are larval hosts to the woollybear caterpillars which are friggin' adorable furry little things. : - 12/14/11 - This is such a big family that it's hard to avoid having it in your garden. There are a number of showy native species and that's what I've focused on collecting. - 12/14/11 - I love my pitcher plants! They have proven completely hardy here in southwest Ohio which is remarkable considering most of them originate from milder climates on the southeast coast. In particular my favorite is Sarracenia leucophylla var. green because it's pitchers persist beautifully even after multiple hard frosts. I added more species to my collection this summer, so I hope they survive the winter like their cousins. - 12/14/11 - What garden wouldn't be complete without roses? Ummm...mine! I do love roses, but I'm not particularly interested in having them in my garden. In fact the only real rose I'm growing now is a native species. And I've grown annoyed with that giant rambling stickerbush which just keeps growing and spreading! On the other hand, Ninebark is one of my absolute favorite native plants of all time. I have lots of accessions including several local genotypes. - 12/14/11 - This is one of those families that I rarely think about. I don't particularly collect them. And I would struggle to name another genus in the group. However, the accessions that I do have in my possession I am extremely fond of, especially Aquilegia 'Blazing Star'. I have to be careful and grow my Aquilegia accessions apart from each other so that they don't cross pollinate. - 12/14/11 - I've grown the native passionflowers in my outdoor garden for nearly a decade, but in 2010 I started growing tropical ones inside as windowsill plants. I had some success and in 2011 my collection has expanded significantly. I am especially focusing on Decaloba species with the intent of infusing some tropical flair into the cold hardiness of Passiflora lutea. I have some encouraging results in the form of several dozen seeds resulting from crossing P. × 'Manta' with P. lutea. Now the task is to get those seeds to germinate. - 12/14/11 - In 2010 my boyfriend bought me my first orchid. Actually he bought two of them. They were Phalaenopsis and they were surprisingly easy to take care of. In a few short weeks I started buying other orchids, and within a year well... yeah, I had definitely gone crazy. At a rough guess I've killed half of them, but honestly speaking that's not so bad. I've learned which ones do well, and I can focus on growing those now. I also have several outdoor native orchids growing as companions in my carnivorous plant bog bed. Some of these are just as impressive as the modern hybrid orchids I'm growing indoors. - 12/14/11 - My attempts at growing lilies have had pretty awful results. Most accessions have died... quickly. And others struggle and languish. Basically it's just the couple of big box store daylilies that are doing well for me. How sad is that? - 12/14/11 - I love my butterworts!!! I had never heard of this family of plants prior to 2010, but my oh my how I have fallen in love with these little guys. Granted, I have managed to kill about half my accessions, but the ones that have survived seem to be thriving. I even had one guy mysteriously germinate from seed. It appeared soon after the mother plant died off. It's definitely a ping, but I can't tell yet if it's the same species as the original plant (P. lutea). - 12/14/11 - This is one of those families that I rarely think about. I don't particularly collect them. And I would struggle to name another genus in the group. However, the accessions I do have in my possession I am extremely fond of, especially the locally native accessions of Blephilia and Pycanthemum. - 12/14/11 - My all time favorite Family. Irises are solely responsible for getting me hooked on gardening. And although I no longer have the passion for them that I once did, they are still very much an important part of my collection. These days I am especially fond of native species like Iris brevicaulis, Iris fulva, and Iris tridentata. And I also love Louisiana irises. Bearded irises have fallen out of favor with me for a variety of reasons, but I do still love my arils and arilbreds. - 12/14/11 - By all accounts Gesneriads are, by definition, the Family of plants that I should be the leastmost interested in. I mean, my whole passion for gardening has been locally native wildflowers. And gesneriads don't even have a single species that's native to the U.S.A. or Canada. Yet somehow I have fallen in love with them, and I find them so rewarding to grow as houseplants. I tried hard to focus on Central and South American species... but as the months go by I find myself preferring the Asian species instead. They just seem better suited to my growing conditions, and let's face it... less fussy is better. - 12/15/11 - Beans! I've had mixed results with this Family. Some species have died outright. But a few have flourished. I can't particularly say I love this group of wildflowers, but it is intriguing that they range from dwarf plants to mighty trees. - 12/15/11 - There are some cool insectivorous plants in this Family and I am growing some of them in my garden. I was thrilled that venus flytraps survived outdoors for me year - 12/15/11 - There are some marvellous perennial natives that belong to this Family, such as the wild potato vine. It is truly a delightful plant and I'm thrilled to finally have it in my collection. - 12/15/11 - I visited Rainforest Flora nursery on a trip to Los Angeles in 2010. I went a bit nuts and bought oodles of Tillandsias and brought them home packed carefully in my luggage. Over the months that followed a few of them died. But now, more than a year later, several others are flourishing and blooming. They are quite an enjoyable addition to my collection of indoor houseplants. I love growing them in my terrarium with the pinguiculas. - 12/15/11 - Ahhhhh... Asteraceae... the epitome of the American prairie. I adore my accessions of Silphium, Helianthus, Echinacea, Elephantopus, Coreopsis, and more! I am definitely a connoisseur of a few genera in this family. - 12/15/11 - This is one of the few families that I grow both indoors and outdoors. Outdoors I grow my accessions of Asclepias. Indoors I grow my accessions of Hoya. I'll never forget the first time I saw a Hoya blooming and I could not comprehend what I was looking at... I knew it was an Asclepias but it was a tropical vine! LOL! That wasn't so long ago, either! - 12/15/11 - I'm pretty amazed by the diversity in this Family of plants. I am particularly fond of those species originating from South America. Eucharis, in particular, is probably my favorite genus of the group, right now. - 12/15/11 - Years ago I saw photos of hybrids of Manfreda virginica with varoius Polianthes species. It was love at first sight. Unable to find these plants in commerce, I set about creating my own hybrids. It has been slow going, but I finally have a nice collection of non - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -		Filters applied to database entries: ONLY WITH PHOTOS ↔ ALL LIVING ENTRIES ↔ ALL RESTRICT BY FAMILY ↔ ALL ALPHABETICAL ↔ BY ACC.NO.
© 2011-2012 unauthorized reproduction of any content is prohibited. Estimated database completion = 75% as of December 23, 2011. Well, I've gone back as far as summer of 2003 and realized the futility of trying to include accessions that old. The plants are unlikely to still be alive, plus my old records are tough to follow. So for now I'm going to give up on those earlier accessions and focus on completing the info on the 500+ plants already listed.