Best In Show! (Colorado Cactus and Succulent Society show, April 2022)

Weingartia saipiensis shown by Jackson Burkholder: the most spectacular blooming winner

I have had the privilege of seeing spectacular cactus shows all over Southern California--not to mention Philadelphia, Connecticut, Kansas City and Boston. (Although I have yet to attend the near mythical "Intercity Show"  in August at the Los Angeles Botanic Garden that has well over a thousand spectacular entries.) Wouldn't you know, last weekend was the first time in YEARS I had not entered a single plant in our Colorado Cactus and Succulent Society's show--and I think it was the best show ever (is there a connection?) I thought you'd enjoy seeing some of the Best in Show specimens! Do be sure to attend one of the dozens of shows across the USA and Canada (and likely Mexico as well). I know Great Britain does Cactus and Succulent shows superbly as well!

Over 1600 people attended the Show and Sale over the 3 day weekend--and most lingered over the Plant Show!

Lots of specimens to admire! And a steady stream of viewers

Sclerocactus cloverae (a rare perfectly grown native cactus) shown by Donald Barnett Sr., one of he coauthors of a book I reviewed on this blog a few posts ago: small world!

Of course, partly because of its rarity and large size--but mostly because it was grown so well, this specimen won a bevy of trophies as you can see including "Judge's Choice"! as well as first place for its grouping (Pediocactus, Sclerocactus etc)

Mammillaria spinossisima shown by J. Scott

In addition to a first in its class (Mammillaria) this won the coveted Dana Such award: one of our treasured members recently lost to cancer whose Mammillaria collection was the finest in our region.

Astrophytum asterias 'Kikko Lizard Skin' shown by Jack Clark

I like the pot almost as much as the gnarly cactus! This one winning the Jim Sykes trophy--another treasured past member who participated for decades showing fabulous cacti: this was deemed the best cactus in the whole show.

Haworthia emelyae Major Hybrid Shown by Russell Lopresti

Another coveted ribbon and a trophy named for Mary Ann Heacock, the founder of our club and one of my mentors and beloved friend who passed away at nearly 100 years old a few decades ago. She was a world renowned Haworthia collector, and the trophy is for the best Haworthia.

Haworthia emelyae Major Hybrid Shown by Russell Lopresti

What a stunning irridescent color on this! Russell seems to have a habit of winning this trophy!...

Euphorbia aeruginosa shown by Alex MacMillan

This won the Lynn Wilson trophy for best succulent. I love looking at the past winners whose names are engraved on the trophy for many years back--so many great growers in the club whose memory is cherished.

Echinocereus coccineus grown outside in a pot by Ken Sipsey

This perfect specimen is 20 years old: it won the Jerry Sochor trophy for best winter hardy cactus at this show.

A 25 year old Euphorbia platyclada shown by Aubree Murray

Another winner of multiple ribbons--"Best Novice Succulent" and "Judges Choice"--it's obvious Aubree will not be in the Novice Class for very long!

Euphorbia ambovombensis shown by Zachary Foulke 

Another multiple ribbon winner--with a lavish "Best Caudiciform" for the show went to another different exhibitor.

A breathtaking specimen of Ariocarpus fissuratus shown by Keith Woesterhoff

And a winner of multiple ribbons and the prized "BEST OF SHOW" for the year went to this truly spectacular specimen of a fabulous native American cactus.

 I concentrated on the trophy winners and those with special ribbons above, but you can see there were plenty of fantastic specimens and blue ribbon winners in many classes I simply don't have the time or patience to depict individually: wish I did they deserve it!

Notice that every one of the winners above was a different grower: what is perhaps most surprising is that some our very best growers were not represented in the on the trophy benches--a tribute to the depth of talent in the Colorado Cactus and Succulent Society, and in the incredible organizers of the show: Roswitha Moehring and Harriet Olds in particular have put in countless hours preparing for the show, passing plants, preparing the trophies and ribbons and making it come together.

And dozens of club members stepped forth with plants on which they have lavished years--often decades--of care and attention. These plant shows are spectacular! I regret not entering this year and will be doubly anxious to groom some specimens that I think might have merited to join these at the head table (something that I've achieved a few times in the past...with great pride!)

Panayoti Kelaidis (left) and Scott Burkholder (right)

And I have to give a special note of appreciation to the Chairman of the whole event and President of the Colorado Cactus and Succulent Society--Scott Burkholder. We both channeled wearing our "brotherly" shirts on Sunday [honest--we didn't coordinate it--we both have a LOT of different shirts: it had to be fate]. As president of the local Rocky Mountain Chapter of the North American Rock Garden Society, we partnered for the first time in selling plants at this sale, largely thanks to Scott's open mindedness and big heart.

Scott's not only president of CCSS, and Show chair, he produces the newsletter and chaired the whole show: I sincerely hope some of our CCSS members step up to take over some of his responsibilities--a club that can produce that kind of show ought to have more than one great leader!

Meanwhile I am stunned that having produced nearly 1000 blog posts on Prairiebreak alone, I am shocked that I've never "done" our local CCSS show before. I've marveled and attended these shows for over a half century. Most of the trophies in this show are people who were dear friends. I blush to think I am by far the most senior member of the club (I first attended a meeting nearly 60 years ago, not long after the club was formed as a teenager accompanying my brother-in-law who was at the height of his succulent enthusiasm back then), I didn't become an active member until the 1980's, but I cherish the thought that I was "there" back before Denver Botanic Gardens built it's Education buildings where we've met for decades (the club originally met at the old "Horticulture House" next to the Byer-Evans Mansion in the very epicenter of our city. I may be one of very few people living who attended meetings in that building or who even knew it existed!)

Such are the joys of getting older--and sticking to things like cacti, succulents...and in my case also alpines, steppe plants heck, the whole dang plant kingdom! I have been truly blessed to have been an acolyte of Mother Flora all my life.

Victoria again! A few fun forays...

Erythronium oreganum

Hard to believe it's been a month: but couldn't resist showing a few pictures of the masses of E. oreganum (which we saw many places) none more dazzling than inside Victoria proper at the Oak Bay Native Plant Garden where these and many other treasures are rescued from the rampant development of woodlands nearby.

See: proof I was there!

More Erythronium oreganum

And even more Erythronium oreganum

Undoubtedly a second growth Douglas fir--but still massive (shading the gardeb)

Crevice-meister Paul Spriggs marvelling over a clumping form of Trillium ovatum (these usually have only single stems)

What Paul was ogling

My Cicerones for the tour: two more charming, knowledgeable and fun guides one would be hard put to find: Paul Spriggs on the left and Cameron Kidd on the right--both forces to be reckoned with!

Demitasse Cafe

From the Native Plant Garden we went to the frying pan, as it were: the Demitasse Cafe is an extraordinary place: an absolutely delightful bistro (with a wide range of delicious food) and a garden centre (we were in Canada where they spell things differently, don't you know!) with a really fine assortment of plants--many of which I would have purchased if it were in Denver!

Perhaps if you behave and are very, very nice, I'll post pictures of some of those scrumptious plants!
 

Penstemons: America's greatest wildflower and a new book!

Penstemon versicolor

A classic penstemon in bloom: in this case, a rather rare and local species I'll discuss later--one of the reasons for this post as a matter of fact: photographed 20 years ago in the Wildflower Treasures garden at Denver Botanic Gardens.

This is the map showing the distribution of Penstemon in the continental United States: I'll bet a concerted search would be able to fill some of those dark green counties--the "Driftess" area of Wisconsin and northern Iowa surely must have a few P. grandiflorus growing, for instance...and those dark green blotches in the Southeast! Few wildflowers cover the United States so gloriously and colorfully!

Here's another shot of Penstemon versicolor I took on another occasion in Wildflower Treasures: both the penstemon and the Garden are both long gone--even these photos were retrieved from a website where they are no longer present (their thumbnails are lingering sadly in the browser where I downloaded them). This distinctive penstemon was absent for decades in the standard Rocky Mountain Flora of the region where it grew: so many penstemons! The otherwise meticulous Dr. Weber apparently lost track of a few (he also forgot to list the distinctive Cochetopa pass endemic Penstemon ramaleyi!)

Here is the range of P. versicolor: one of our most showy endemic taxa: the map is misleading--it's pretty much limited to limestone bluffs along the Arkansas river--a narrow and fragile range that is undergoing rapid development from construction. Southeastern Colorado: perhaps the most under-touristed quadrant of the State has been discovered. And Woe betide the plants that lie in the path of bulldozers!

I talked at length and showed pictures of the spectacular garden of Don and Donnie Barnett when I hyped their LAST book: the Cactus of Colorado. Do click on that yellow shadowed link in the last sentence to review not just the book, but my high praise of their spectacular garden.  The Barnetts--father and son (with a very supportive and wonderful wife/mother Cecelia) are a dynamic force that operate a specialty nursery (Ethical Desert) as well as cranking out books (2 so far with more in the pipeline). Their Colorado Cactus has been a great success...

Sample page from the Barnett's monograph

Why buy a regional guide to Penstemon? A monograph of the whole genus doesn't exist, and if it did it would be enormous and unwieldy. Penstemons do tend to congregate in clusters of endemics--and Southeastern Colorado boasts some of the loveliest--like P. versicolor for instance! And each of them has a fascinating story to be told: the Barnetts tell those stories well, and their detailed descriptions, dot maps of county occurrences and notes about cultivation and so much more make this book a must for anyone who considers themselves a wildflower lover of our American treasures.

How can you get a copy of this book? Click HERE to buy it on the Ethical Desert website..or you can order it for $5,00 more if you look for it on Amazon.

If there were a single genus that merited being the national flower of the United States, this is it! The genus seems to specialize in red, white and blue (with very few yellows, by the way) and as you can see from the BONAP map, it covers the country as thoroughly as  Sherwin Williams colors the planet in bright red paint (that annoying logo shall not be allowed to have the last word.)

My last word is a confession: I wrote the Foreword to this lovely book: a short and I hope poignant essay where I talk about the enormous significance Southeastern Colorado has for our state, the country and particularly for myself: I have spent countless hours exploring this unspeakably beautiful part of our America that has remained amazingly un-despoiled. Alas, I fear that could be changing! Let's hope the Barnett's books alert the public and officials so that some of the magnificent wildflower displays shown so well in this book that lie in the path of mindless development are preserved. Let's hope this book will be their signpost and not their epitaph!

 

I am of an age

 

I received this obituary from dear friends in Toronto today asking me to share it: we will undoubtedly include a tribute to Barrie in the NARGS Quarterly (he was an eminent rock gardener in North America) and I could send it as an attachment to my many friends who knew and loved Barrie. I've not done many eulogies in Prairiebreak. Perhaps now is the time?

I am of an age that funerals and memorial services are more and more frequent, it seems, as well as visits to nursing facilities and I find myself purchasing extra sympathy cards to stockpile when I go to buy one: just in recent weeks I was at a funeral service for Ted Kuettel--one of my dearest nursery friends who was born in Switzerland and grew the best perennials in the Denver area. My oldest and dearest childhood friend, Maia Sampson Michael, succumbed to ten years of brave battling with cancer--her service will be in June and I shall be there. Jerry Morris--the greatest Horticulturist of the Rocky Mountain Region--who was honored in a previous guest blog is also gone. And now Barrie who I knew mostly from study weekends and meetings of the North American Rock Garden Society--which he attended regularly for decades. There is no more compelling reason to attend meetings like this than to meet the likes of this Great Scot!

He was one of those people you looked out for--to greet and to hang out with--that beaming smile--and because of his wicked, sardonic and utterly hilarious wit. His writings (far too few) were positively brilliant pieces of humor, and his talks were utterly unique: he would depict a fantastic travelogue with superb photographs, but subtly, a second theme would play out: in one particularly amazing performance we traveled through highlights of the West viewing dazzling wildflowers, only little bits and pieces would casually emerge that made you realize that his loving wife Jane, was actually attempting to kill him by various means--urging him to back up further as he photographed where he might fall over a cliff, or by attempting to poison him at a greasy spoon. Delivered deadpan, the audience was in stitches (not to mention pins and needles) wondering if she'd ever succeed! I've never seen or heard anything quite like Barrie's performances: if he was on the docket, by God I'd be there to enjoy it!

And so it happened he was in Scotland once when I visited "The Botanics" where I bumped into Barrie. Next thing I knew I was visiting his mother's house with him around the corner from the great Garden, and we were sipping tea: his beautiful, vigorous, stylish mother was exactly the sort of person who would have given birth to a Barrie! Or the magical dinner I had one evening with Canadian luminaries at his elegant home in Richmond Hill: one of those unforgettable nights orchestrated by Jane (who had not het managed to kill him) with the finest crystal, and course after course of ambrosial food and drink and sparkling humor. Every encounter with this fellow was memorable.

His city garden was small, but full of treasures that I'd never seen before (many no doubt brought from Scotland). He often spoke and wrote about a much grander garden he had in Muskoka. I've always hoped one day to visit it.

I am of an age when certain things we hope for will never come to pass.

Farewell my elegant Canadian-Scots hero! I shall cherish your memory forever.

Guest Post: Tribute to Jerry Morris by Betsy Baldwin-Owens

Elton Jerry Morris passed away on March 29 of this year. I saw Betsy at Jerry's funeral last Saturday, and we reminisced about that remarkable man: I told her how much I regretted  never taking pictures of the fantastic nursery filled with his plants that they managed together on her land. I also didn't have pictures of the spectacular Aspen garden he created: she had both. I asked her if she would contribute these to Prairiebreak: two days later she sent me these pictures and text. I am deeply grateful for this!

Betsy on left, Jerry Morris on the right taken on the spectacular Starwood in Aspen garden

My name is Betsy Baldwin-Owens, owner and grower for Sun Chaser Farms (formerly Sun Chaser Natives). I had the pleasure of knowing and spending significant time with Jerry Morris from 1999 until 2010. I was running my wholesale regionally native plant business in Arvada and he rented space from me. 

Vintage photos of Jerry's plantings and nursery on Betsy's property

In the beginning of our time together he was grafting conifers and coming up with interesting ideas for unique way to be creative with plants. Some of his creations were as follows. We had the ‘Bonny Boon’ collection. These were small, maybe 10”, containers with small conifers or some small native sage, or other deciduous shrub planted in the center. I supplied some of the plants for him. They were attractively placed with pieces of interesting, gnarled, aged wood, cleverly placed near them. Others would have interesting rocks that he collected of all shapes and sizes, all creating miniature  landscapes. The surface of the soil would be mounded up, bonsai style, and covered with small grit or moss he collected. They were beautiful and lovely. He wanted me to help him sell them, but I was up to my ears in work and did not take the bait, though I was very tempted.

Some of the thousands of Bonsai and character trees Jerry grew on the Baldwin property

  His projects seemed to lead him forward. So in the gathering of mosses for the ‘Bonny Boons’ he began learning about them. How to grow mosses, what the different ones were, and where they grew. He and I would discuss  all of these things at length while I potted my natives and worked in the greenhouse. I had to get good and working and talking to him, as he was a talker and I found I could not get things done if I stopped. This was not an easy task and if you knew Jerry, you would know he could talk at length! The thing is, I liked to glean information from him and he from me. Though at times I was exasperated, I was glad to have him there. He would also get frustrated with me, but we were both kind and always worked it out. I would not trade the time for something else.

More views of the Baldwin property filled with Jerry's treasures

He had opportunities to travel all over the west in search of brooms, trees and unique plants. He would always bring back seed and sometime Arctostaphylos cuttings. A plant genus that I specialized in growing. Each trip would find me behind his truck upon return helping him go through bags of plants and seeds collected interspersed with unique stones and pieces of wood.

Some of the hundreds of giant, narrow spruces destined for the Aspen property being held over on the Baldwin property

He would tell me stories of his adventures. I remember he came back one time, after being gone a long time, with his knee all wrapped up and a pretty good limp. He said he was up in the mountains far from any town and dusk was falling. As he was driving the dirt road down the mountain he spotted a broom on a tree up the steep rocky face of the upper side of the road. He climbed up to it with a chain saw and found he had to shimmy out on a limb to get the broom; with a live chainsaw no less. He slipped when he made the cut and chainsaw came down and got him in the knee. Needless to say it was not good. He had to try and get out of the tree, wrap his knee enough to get down the slope, blood coming out quickly. He was afraid he would pass out. He got himself wrapped up as well as he could at his truck and got himself off the mountain somehow. In my mind I think he said he also got the broom, but I can’t be certain. In some way Jerry was larger than life, a real Paul Bunyan. 

More vintage views of the holding areas for spruces and propagules

After  Jerry was hired by Bill Ziff, with whom he became a good friend, and had more space to grow at my greenhouses things really took off for him. The Ziff properties in Aspen wanted to bring in the most amazing trees and plants to recreate a wild habitat over 200 acres. Jerry played an integral part in this. He found and acquired native rock formations as big as tiny houses cut from hillsides that ended up trucked into the property so it looked like it was always that way. There were unique, specially selected trees of blazing colors, unique shapes, and special species included. Also ‘The Ancients’, conifers that lived long before manifest destiny was an idea and even before the birth of Genghis Khan. All incorporated to look completely wild and natural. You can see the rock formations and trees in the images.

A few of the "ancients" being pampered with frequent misting

Jerry built special set ups to do further experiments with conifer and oak grafting. He incorporated the learning from his previous creations and added them to his current endeavors. ‘The Ancients’ as they called them were specially dug Limber Pine and other conifers from ranches all over where Jerry had received permission to dig them. They took two years to prep. Jerry would tell me at length about the methods used, the timing, and moving these fragile beasts. To accomplishes this with so few dying was really amazing. You can see many of them in the photos in the wild landscaped mountain and at the greenhouses too.

Some plantings of mature dwarf conifers

In 2010 my Mom’s dementia brought me to close the greenhouses and Jerry and I had to find homes for all of the plants we acquired and grew together. You can see his collections in the images. His grafting and collecting endeavors we prolific. I found in Jerry a kindred spirit. A bit of that maverick thinking that sparks the creative mind. Many of the plants that he released into the world will live life times after we who read this are long gone. Jerry would always say the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago or today. We best get planting!

One of the prop houses (there were many)

More and more bonsai

And even a rock collection (destined for bonsai pots)

One of many tours that came to see Jerry's collection (hundreds came for the Conifer Conference)

More glimpses of Jerry's plants at the Baldwin property

The view from the top of the spectacular garden Jerry planted for Bill Ziff in Starwood in Aspen

Views of Ziff garden in Starwood in Aspen

Cliff brought in from Utah border for Ziff garden in Starwood in Aspen

One of the "ancients' planted on the cliff

A small part of the cliffs brought in from Gateway for the Aspen garden

One of the "Eleven Ancients" on the Gateway cliff

Another view of the cliff at Starwood

Betsy Baldwin-Owens

 Betsy has explored for native plants and operated a native plant nursery for many years. The manzanitas propagated and sold by Plant Select all derive from collections that Betsy made in the last part of the last Millennium. She continues to offer native wildflowers grown organically, propagated and sold in bio-degradable pots so as to minimize the horticultural impact on the environment. I am deeply grateful for her providing this unique glimpse of Jerry Morris' work: I regard Jerry as the preeminent Horticulturist of the Rocky Mountain Region of my lifetime. Betsy was instrumental in facilitating his work at the height of his career. 

Click here to visit Betsy's Website: Sun Chaser Farms