Just how hardy are hardy ice plants? Hereby hangs a tale...

Delosperma cooperi (by Nevin Bebee)

Nevin Bebee has volunteered at Denver Botanic Gardens as long as I've worked here (let's not bandy about numbers...but let's just say the plant you see above came from a cutting I gave Nevin in the mid 1980's--and we'd both been around for a while at that point...

What is so remarkable to both of us is that the plant you see above has persisted in that same spot for over 30 years, which is to say it's endured shallow soil in winters which have dropped below -20F and summers which have baked above 100F. This should put to rest any doubts about the hardiness of this taxon! Here's what Nevin had to say in a recent email: "I guess I am surprised long lived patches of Delosperma aren't more common, after all, don't they commonly clone themselves much as other succulents do? I believe mine have found ice plant heaven on the boulder because the surrounding garden has always been pretty well irrigated, receiving water 2-3 X/week in the heat of summer. They ice plants are too well drained to rot and too well watered to dry out completely. This may change due to changes I'm making in the surrounding garden."

 I have pictures of the original planting of D. cooperi in the Rock Alpine Garden where it did persist (and there may even be a fragment left--I wouldn't be surprised) [The picture above is NOT that planting incidentally]...I don't know if I've ever published the whole story of its introduction (it's a pretty good one!)...and perhaps I shall...but the theme right now is longevity: the scene above was the most dramatic planting I ever made of it at the entrance to the Rock Alpine Garden--probably in the early 1990's almost a decade after our first getting cooperi... For those who don't believe in revolutionary change, here is that same spot this past winter:

I've shown a winter shot of the entrance crevice gardens so as not to shock you too much! Honest..it's the same spot as in the garden above--needless to say, Delosperma cooperi isn't in evidence!

 I suppose I should do the entrance crevice garden a BIT of justice--here's what it looks like in bloom:

A shot of the garden from the West end looking East...

And a more frontal picture: a lot more complexity than bedding out masses of a single Delosperma!

Spearking of which, here's the slightly dwarfer and much hardier race that Sunscapes has been selling for years, but which doesn't seem to have caught on. We've had five or six very different accessions of D. cooperi from high elevations--none of them in commerce.

Here's Delosperma cooperi growing at its highest altitude in Lesotho near Oxbow lodge--which may explain its thriving on top of rocks...

D. cooperi on cliffs at Oxbow

This sign is clearly visible from the cliff where Delosperma cooperi was growing in nature--which translates to 8284' elevation. The sheep to the right and wrecked car on the left give some characteristic local color to the scene!

This is, after all, a ski area--and one of the coldest areas in Southern Africa where subzero temperatures are not unheard of. So the toughness of Nevin's plant is perhaps not so surprising.

What does surprise me is that growing with the Delosperma on these same cliffs are masses of Aloe aristata, Cotyledon orbiculata and Euphorbia clavarioides. None of these (let alone the Aloe polyphylla that grows not too terribly far away as well) have yet to prove as durable and reliable as the ice plant. But one can only hope!

But Nevin has reinforced my faith in what will probably go down as the most important plant introduction I have personally been part of--and if the whole process had been delayed, it's very possible that D. cooperi wouldn't be introduced at all--at least by a public garden. And thereby hangs another tale!