First of all: my homeland and thus my garden and in-house possibilities and chalenges are quite different than from most of you. So what am I doing here?
Well, I am an all-over plant enthousiast. This also means I (try) to grow plants (and quite often killing them) which are a challenge to my location. In other words: it is often wise to listen to people who are more experienced with them in there 'natural' habitat so I can adapt the circumstances as best as possible. Additionally, I am addicted to photographing plants.
In house I keep (mainly) orchids, bromelia's and succulents (depending on the side of the house). So my Dracula, Masdevallia and such cold and wet loving orchids will be at the north, succulents (cactaceae, crassula, Euphorbia and all similar to that) at the south, the rest: probably in between of where-ever there is room.
My garden is on a "Terp". That is an artificial 'hill' close to a river, just high enough (2m or so) to keep your feet dry at high water (that was off course before climate change - no guarantee these days - fortunately a new dijk (dike?) was build).
The garden benefit of a 'terp': well drained! But very dry also during dry spells. This last September with rain almost daily it is at the other hand just as wet as anything else.
Relatively mild weather year round (-15 up to +30°, in Celcius, no idea what that would be in Fahrenheid). In winter we loose f.e. mountain plants not to low temperatures but to rot. The continuously going just above freezing and below again gives rise to this rot (and of course moulds). That is where my superb drainage helps! We can grow a lot as long it does not need real heat/sun/dry spells (f.e. forget Proteas, even in a good summer not enough sun).
In my garden I have a lot of trees (mainly Oaks and Ulmus (sorry, do not know the USA name) in ~1/3 of the garden. The remainder of this 'forest' (just a 700 m2) are all kinds of wood-plants (shrubs, bulbs etc.). Another 1/3 is occupied by fruit trees (mainly historical cultivars of apple and pear) undergrown with as wild a pasture (including native orchids) as I can achieve.
The last part is the 'formal' garden with my plant collections such as gingers (mainly from the genus Roscoea), Impatiens (the few hardy ones), Arisaema (hardy or in pots) and lots and lots of other plants that for no specific reason I just want to grow such as bulbs, ornamental grasses, roses and everything I just bought for probably no good reason at all. Forget about design, I've never bothered.
So why I am here? What triggered me was the plant database. I do not only love to grow plants but, as stated, I also love photografing them. Living in a different part of the world the database supplied me with names and pics I could not find elsewhere but I also noticed I had many pics of plants mentioned in this database but not yet displayed. Obviously these are often hybrids or plants popular or easy to grow in Europe but not necessarily available in USA. So as a kind of returned favour I decided to add some pics. In the mean time I hope to enjoy my stay at this forum and share with you our mutual plant-love and know-how!
Ruud
ps. If you have plenty of time you can see a lot of my pics at FlickR, just Google "Ruud de Block and FlickR"
pps. English is not my first language, so sorry for stupid phrases and spelling mistakes!
