Poppy seeds for the steppe

Today I spread the last seeds at the steppe roundabout in Lund. Most of the seeds are bought from Jellito Staudensamen in Germany and all arrived earlier this spring except for one item. Papaver croceum 'Wonderland Yellow' or Papaver nudicaule as it's also called, was a rest and came to my post box the other day.

First I mixed the seeds with Vermiculite in a bucket and then I walked around and throwed the mixture all around. I don't know if the poppy will germinate and establish at the calcareous steppe as I never tried it before under this conditions, but that is at least what I hope and expect. Many other seedlings are now emerging in the gravel and especially the Carthusian Pink, Dianthus carthusianorum and Chives, Allium schoenoprasum are abundant just as expected.

The two traffic islands are more densly planted then the roundabout itself.

Most plants are now settled and many tiny seedlings are visable in the gravel

Solitude standing

Yesterday the one and only pine tree, a big Pinus nigra, from Bruns in Germany was planted in the roundabout. All the rocks have also been placed out already so now we are only waiting for the perennials to arrive. Next week the planting will start.  

The first rocks are here

The largest rock is a 5 ton piece of lime stone

Today 13 big boulders came to the roundabout. We directly started to place them out and will continue with that tomorrow. Now I hardly can't wait to get them all on site, so we soon can start with the planting. The solitude tree, a big Pinus nigra, will arrive early next week.

This rock is here turned upside down for best exposure

The Home Town Steppe Roundabout

Late spring snow? No, just chalky sand!  

“No prophet is accepted in his own town” as the modified old Luke saying says. Until now it has been the veracity as I haven’t had any landscape project in my own home town Lund here in the south of Sweden, no, not even a single planting so far.

However now at last I got the mission by the Lund municipality to turn a big roundabout and two traffic islands into a dry calcareous flowering steppe, planted with a wide range of lime loving plants, all originated from Eurasia.

The chalk layer in the roundabout

The preparing has already started. First the former lawn was removed and then a layer of about 10 cm of macadam was spread out all over the soil. Next step was to add about 20 cm of a whitish chalk in the size 0,2-2,0 mm, from Ignaberga. The last top layer consists of about 15-20 cm of calcareous macadam, 0-25 mm, from Falköping.

Next week some big rocks and boulders are going to be placed out at strategic places in the roundabout, companied by smaller but still big stones.

In the Easter week we so will plant the roundabout with many different perennials and grasses. I’ll of course come back here to report about the result after finished planting.

Now the last layer of calcareous gravel is placed out

Traffic Islands

Dry and colorful traffic island spot with Nepeta and Origanum

Let's stay in Sävsjö for a while. Not far from the calcareous slope we can find some rather interesting traffic islands. They were all planted in 1998 and are still in very good shape although they do look a bit different today.

The sunny shore theme with Crambe, Artemisia and Geranium

A steppe style planting embrace the parking area

Along the head street in the small little city we planted several small plots and close to parking places also some bigger plantings. At the sunny side of the street all plantings were created as dry sites with high amount of gravels and pebbles mixed into the soil. At the shady part instead woodland style plantings with Hosta, ferns and other shade perennials were choosen.

Good contrast makers here are Stachys, Origanum and Nepeta.

 

Hosta and variegated Aegopodium in the shade