Two weeks to Steppe Summit!

Steppe Meister!

Perhaps it's not the most flattering portrait...but this does perhaps convey some of the whimsy that balances Mike Bone's many other more serious sides: I've had the pleasure of working with Mike for two decades, and I have come to know and admire much about the man. Heck, I adore the son of a gun! I eulogized him almost two years ago (Genghis Bone) with many better pictures of him....

I have also done Prairiebreak portraits of the three other exotic speakers who will be speaking at the Steppe Summit on September 15 at Denver Botanic Gardens:

Vojtech Holubec on the Flowers of the Tian Shan (feauturing photos from his just published book o the same subject

Christopher Gardener, Garden designer and plant explorer who now lives in Turkey who co-wrote Flora of the Silk Road and will speaking on the subject.

Zdenek Zvolanek on "The Beauty Slope" (his spectacular private garden of steppe plants at Karlik)


Mike will be giving an update on his work in Lesotho--the mountain Kingdom surrounded by South Africa where so many of our Plant Select treasures originated. He's been assisting staff at the Katse Botanical Garden there with projects, and collaborating with Munich Botanic Garden in seed collection and research in the high steppe environments of the country in the Southern Hemisphere that most closely resembles Colorado in climate and geomorphology.

Mike is also the mastermind who has orchestrated the creation of the Steppe Garden at Denver Botanic Gardens--which has generated enormous interest in the last few years. It contains several dramatic takes on the theme of "crevice gardening" that won the admiration and high praise from Zdenek Zvolanek last week.

Zdenek and Vojtech were two of the handful of Czech gardeners who evolved the Crevice garden technique of rock gardening--which is now featured in several areas at Denver Botanic Gardens, Cheyenne Botanic Gardens, Montrose and Durango Botanic Gardens, the Yampa River Botanic Park, Vail Alpine Garden and several public gardens in Colorado Springs, as well as the spectacular Simms Street APEX crevice garden in Arvada. There is talk about new Crevice Gardens at the Santa Fe Botanical Garden, the Gardens at Spring Creek in Fort Collins and elsewhere in this region. Come "drink at the source" of what is proving to be one of the most exciting new garden styles!

Just click below and sign up! There will never again be a line up like this--at least not in America!

Rocky Mountain Steppe Summit registration

Or you can join the ranks of "Coulda! Shoulda! Woulda!)....