Has it only been eight months since I last blogged about this garden? Do click on
that blog (That Blog) for the backstory: Flash forward (for me this means 3 trips to California, New Zealand, England, Wisconsin, the Czech Republic and who knows what else intervening)...it feels like a century ago: but the garden has gone from strength to strength. Last Tuesday I was driving Michael Midgley (q.v.:
the garden in Tekapo) who was visiting us before joining the NARGS tour to Wyoming, to visit his Denver relatives--who happened to live in Arvada a stone's throw from APEX: of COURSE we had to visit (and if you're clever, you'll catch a glimpse* of this extraordinary Kiwi gardener and sportsman). It's been 90+F for much of the last week, nearing 100: and what impressed me that in this minimally watered garden there were TONS of choice plants in bloom--a few of which I'll share with you here...
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| Moltkia petraea |
I have grown this for ten years: this one can't be more than two or three years old and it's bigger than mine--one of the most dazzling of blue-flowered miniature shrubs.
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| Pelargonium endlicherianum |
My plants (which I dote upon) aren't in bloom yet. Nor are they as husky as this amazing specimen.
You are probably not overly impressed...YET...but that's a shrubby
Junellia from Patagonia that's blooming there! To DIE for!
And a mystery Scabious. Don't know which one...
One of many Acantholimons thriving in this garden...
A wonderful yellow form of Eriogonum ovalifolium: not sure which subspecies...
If you checked the PREVIOUS blog as I tried to coerce you to do--you would have seen this Same paintbrush blooming eight months earlier: it never quits!
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| Teucrium cossonii |
This stunning germander from the Balearic Isles is occasionally grown in California: it thrives for us as well...a much underutilized gem that has been sold as
T. aroanium: a very different plant!
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| Townsendia incana in ripe seed! |
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| Heterotheca jonesii draping on a roock |
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| A |
American and Moroccan plants growing cheek by jowl....both quite happy.
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| A very different subspecies of E. ovalifolium--perhaps eximium? |
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| This looks very much like Eriogonum kingii... |
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Phlox nana relegated to a corner where it may ramp to its heart's content.
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| David Salman's collection of Cotula from the Drakensnberg. |
The vistas are charming already: lots of room for more plants, and for plants to spread.As lichens colonize and other microbiota--this garden can only increase in charm. (*Yes, he's in this one!)
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| Monardella macrantha 'Marion Sampson' |
Yes: blooming last fall, featured on the cover of NARGS Quarterly in the interim, and still blooming away!
(* indicates the frame (second to last) where Michael Midgley is lurking in the back--the fellow with the spectacular New Zealand crevice garden in Tekapo: so strange I never knew Michael before last November. Now he's in the West and as I type this he's spent several days with Kenton--and tomorrow they shall be on the Beartooth together (or perhaps the Bighorns?). What fun it would be to drop in on some of the conversations of these crevice garden masters as they traverse the magical mountains of the West....such are the strands that make up this blog, and our lives!)
You were right about Phlox nana being hardy in northern Illinois. I wish I could say the same thing about Phlox diffusa. Without snow cover only one of my Phlox diffusa made it through the winter. A cold winters is bound to eventually get this last Phlox diffusa too.
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