A tree, a viper, a story

A tree far away...what could it be? We're in the very furthest east of Kazakhstan, not far from the "Austrian Road" built in these rugged mountains by German prisoners during the Second World War. It doesn't look quite right to be Siberian pine (Pinus sibirica) the commonest conifer hereabouts...the scale can be deduced by the tiny figure to the left--whatever it is it's impressive...

A closeup of the last picture--

Larix sibirica

Yes! it IS a larch, Siberian larch to be exact!  

This picture, alas, doesn't convey the size and magnificence...

 I love the rugged form that so many trees--especially oaks--take when they're growing by themselves. On hilltops like this they often have a slight (or not so slight) twist from the force of wind, and a hefty trunk caliper in ratio to the height. But a larch growing amid steppe vegetation on top of a hill? Don't they need to be wetter?

Here's a taller specimen--not quite so gnarly--growing lower down the hillside not far away...

Vladimir Kolbintsev, our guide and interpreter, along with Mike Bone--my colleague at the gardens. This is the closeup of the trunk of the tree in the last picture: very impressive!

A few yards away, Vladimir spied one of his specialties--the common "European" viper, or adder--

Vipera berus.  A tad far away from Europe--and an excellent example of how "Eurocentric" we are in so many ways. The equivalent in North America is bi-coastal-syndrome (where the two coasts get all the attention and the rest of the US and Canada are "flyover country")...

Not nearly as colorfully marked as many adders, it was nevertheless a delightful creature to encounter: Vladimir, who studied them for his degree--says he was bitten many times. I didn't care to experiment. 

Here is the view from where we saw that first giant Larch--basically a steppe meadow--too exposed and likely too dry for forest. Nevertheless, a giant larch grew here--and has survived for centuries, I reckon.

And here is one of several specimens at Denver Botanic Gardens: we grow other larches, but this one has thrived wherever it was planted--and looking at where it grows in nature should tell you why. It's an example of one of dozens--nay! HUNDREDS of spectacular trees we SHOULD be growing instead of the small number usually found in commoner nurseries.

Tree diversity is something that should be on EVERYONE'S plate. We are hosting the 8th Annual Tree Diversity Symposium at DBG via Zoom this Friday (although if you sign up you can view the programs at your convenience for several weeks). We have had many of America's leading tree experts speak, and this year is no exception. Our keynote speaker, Michael Dosmann, is keeper of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, which celebrates its 150th Anniversary this year!

A wide spectrum of topics--including the widespread insect pests and diseases in our mountains, the unique re-forestation programs of Denver proper and a panel discussion by local nursery professionals on how and why new trees are so hard to get to you--and how to change that!

Do check  it out here: better yet--just sign up! You won't regret it!

Vicarious travel!

We've all been cooped up so long with COVID, I don't know about you, but I'm itching to travel...since I don't have any trips for at LEAST a few weeks, I enjoy revisiting places I've been: come join me on some of my trips to seven of my favorite places: Click on any of the photos below and you'll access a Youtube video of a presentation I've done about plants and my travels to each place..[warning: most have a short preamble by one of my colleagues introducing me--don't hesitate to skip past that to the MEAT of the talk]...

  

 

 

More meadow madness (Mongolian in this case...)

Scutellaria orientalis

Why would I show a single plant in a blog about meadows? the same reason that Vogue, Vanity Fair, Elle, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Glamour and their ilk invariably depict drop dead gorgeous young women (generally WASP and blond) with one lock of hair askew, and their heads tilted just so: BECAUSE WE ARE PROGRAMMED! Even sophisticated folk to the specific, and eschew the general. That's a fantastic skullcap we saw several times on the steppes of Mongolia and Kazakhstan, btw! If I'd started with a meadow shot you wouldn't have lingered, would you!?

When I photographed this (not far from where the borders of China, Russia and Mongolia meet in far western Mongolia) I thought the colors were outrageously bright: I probably have twenty shots of this particular meadow--all of them rather amorphous. I've not shared these before--and thought with NARGS meadow webinar next week it would be fun to do so...  I am still reeling a bit from a comment made by a dear FB friend (you know who you are: "Meadow craze isn't for me. I like cozier environments") Which in his case is the Eastern woodland. Another close friend confided that he couldn't stand those eastern woodlands "So claustrophobic: you can't see where you are". I am a peculiar sort; I love woods, deserts, steppes--you name it: to play favorites with Nature's biomes strikes me as the height of human something: arrogance? folly? silliness! Although Julie Andrews almost spoiled it for me, careening down the Alpine meadows in those hills alive with the sound of that ear worm--a surprising number of my "peak" experiences have occurred in meadow environments. The day we descended from the Eagle mountains into pristine environments (too far from villages to be overgrazed) in far western Mongolia was such a day for me...twelve years ago and counting, but it feels like yesterday.

Every few miles a whole new palette of plants emerges and of course new views...

What are these two strange strips of bare earth? They look like a trail or road--there was none there...

Could it have been mining? Solifluction terraces? We never determined for sure... but the flowers loved to grow around in between them!

Yes, we were traveling with camels: not something I've done before or since!

Here you can see we're approaching "civilization": a patch of meadow has been protected: we asked why: "to have something for livestock to eat once they'd stripped the other areas down" they said...I've discovered again and again that the nature of grazing has an immense impact on wildflowers: it is essential to have grazing--otherwise coarse grasses dominate over wildflowers. But timing is an art.

And yes, grassland is often scenic!

More of that pea--a Lathyrus or Hedysarum I never keyed out, alas! have something almost identical all over the West.

Trollius altaicus galore...

More of the damn pea...

More views! (whence we came)

Dracocephalum grandiflorum: queen of its genus. This is everywhere in the Altai mountains. The constant shift from grandiloquent view, to specific plant--much like what happens in our gardens--this is a feature of hiking on meadows of any kind: you really can't get bored!

Notice how un-monotonous the endless sea of grasses and forbs is: it does help to dot about the occasional peak or glacier in the distance!

That's one of our camps down below...

Sanguisorba minor?

This looks suspiciously like salad burnet...

I mistook this for a plantain at first...

A bog along the way with Primula nivalis and a buttercup...

Meadows--be they alpine, or steppe or savannah--are the vast spaces where humanity is most vulnerable, and closest to the Heavens. You realize this is the sort of landscape is where not just Homo sapiens--but all the hominins leading to us evolved and made us what we are?  This is the environment that caused us to lift our stature to bolt upright, that exploded the size of our brain and molded every facet of what it is to be a human being. Come to think of it, this should be our favorite biome! The only places on earth that comes close to the feelings that wide open prairies inspire are oceans, seas, vast lakes and rivers where the clutter of cities, forests and humanity are out of sight, out of mind. I love them!

The meadow perplex: messy democracy in the garden

 

Subalpine meadow en route to Engineer Peak in the San Juans, July 2021

I have hundreds, maybe THOUSANDS of photographs of meadows, nearly all of them disappointing. Few phenomena are more all encompassing, more exhilarating, more thrilling than being in a flowery meadow on a summer's day, your hair lightly tousled by the wind and a million colorful flowers gently swaying around you, casting their fragrance and their spell in the air. You snap a picture: ...meh...looks so blah! Such is the messy inefficiency of democracy. Dazzling in concept, flawed in execution. At least when translated to photography!

Castilleja integra (and Opuntia debrezyi 'Potato) at APEX Simms street in Arvada, CO

But take one of those flowers and nestle it between stones in a rock garden, and PRESTO! it pops out like Lady Gaga in a tight swimming suit bursting our of a wedding cake (you get the image and can almost hear her singing to boot!). Such is the power of the single image. Dictatorship really...no wonder we love rock gardens! (My jury's out on Lady Gaga--except when she sings with Tony Bennett; or the National anthem)

Vignette from Vail of Geum coccineum  Myosotis sp. and Mertensia ciliata in one of the borders there

The perennial border can capture the mood of a meadow in vignettes: the Betty Ford Alpine Garden in Vail is chockablock full of idealized bits of meadows here and there: rather like republican government (emphatically NOT "Republican Party government"--which is an oxymoron)--representative of a meadow, but not really democracy--the wild rabble in a mass of expressive glory!

An astonishing and unphotographable meadow in Ludlow, Washington 

More and more gardeners across north America, inspired by the bold thinking of a new wave of thinkers and designers (Douglas Tallamy playing the trumpet, with Larry Weaner and Tom Christopher banging on drums, and a host of prairie meisters like Neil Diboll, Roy Diblik in the vanguard--and Kelly Norris wearing tall white drum major hat twirling a baton at least 30 feet in the air....Lady Gaga and Madonna both can't be far behind! The image may be indelible, but the execution is democratic!)

Linda Cochran's garden utterly dazzled me last June: but like all meadows, it eluded my camera. If you see her pictures in the latest NARGS Quarterly you'll know why I fell in love with her work: if you don't belong, do join immediately and you too can see them (otherwise you'll have to wait four years--you can view the old Quarterly bulletins for free after four years!)

Bighorn meadow chockablock full of tiny shooting stars...

How utterly sad that one of the most dazzling vistas I have ever seen is completely obscured by this horrible picture: there had to be tens if not hundreds of thousands of Dodecatheon watsonii--which of course has been gobbled up by D. pulchellum, which should probably actually be D. puberulum--but they're all really just Primula sp. (Primula radicatum perhaps?) Talk about a mess! Just like meadows!

Saxifraga rhomboidea (Micranthes rhomboidea)

On that same field trip to the Bighorns we came across a corner of a meadow carpeted with saxifrage--usually found on rocky habitats--but obviously happy in a meadow...

This year, the North American Rock Garden Society has explored important but neglected arenas of gardening: a fantastic webinar on Woodland Gardening was staged in November, and one on Succulents last month. the Final Webinar of this winter will take place on February 19 with a fantastic lineup of speakers from Across North America, England and Germany. Click here for more information on this conference and these speakers...you can sign up and view any or all of these at your convenience, by the way! 

The creation of urban meadows is perhaps the most exciting and environmentally significant movement in horticulture today--especially in the thirsty Western United States and Canada...although the environmental benefits in more humid climates are great as well indeed. These cutting edge speakers will not only convince you, but present a rich palette of options and choices, and help you too create a meadow somewhere on your property--no matter how small. Even if you'd never thought to do so before!

Perhaps it's time to bring back some democracy to our gardens--not to mention our countries!