Rock Alpine Garden in May 2025 (part one)

Adonis vernalis

 This post would have been 3 times as long, but Blogger gagged: they wouldn't let me post all the pictures. So I shall have to do several posts to do the garden justice. These are all pictures I took on May 9 of this past year of the Rock Alpine Garden, which has been brilliantly curated by Mike Kintgen for several decades now (and more)--but where I got my start in professional horticulture. Most of the plants I show were planted by him--but he's honored my legacy by leaving some hoary individuals I will point out. The Adonis was his for sure: boy am I jealous of this specimen!

Convolvulus assyriucus

This choice bindweed and the hen and chick are holdovers from my time (practically the Pleistocene it seems!)

Penstemon hallii

I grew this once elsewhere in the garden: this round is Mike's--many penstemons are ephemeral.

Primula vernalis

There are big spreads of cowslips (and oxlips too) in several areas--the toughest of the Primula clan for us. These persisted in a shady bed at my parent's Boulder home without supplemental irrigation. 

Pulsatilla albana

Mike has created many intimate areas in the garden--crevice gardens and tufa beds--that provide much better habitat for small plants than the original garden afforded. 

Papaver croceum

Here is one such cluster of smaller rocks that show off this cousin to Iceland Poppies that tolerate our summer heat far better,

Vista from the top of the garden

\Gnarly clumps of Turkish Dianthus anatolicus

Erodium chrysantthum

Enormous clumps of this Greek endemic date back to the first years of my work: easily 45 years old and a yard across blooming pretty much non stop.

Glaucium sp.

Several species of horned poppies occur in this garden (I'm pretty sure we were the first public garden to grow them). This is a particularly good deep orange form--possibly G. acutidentatum.The truly crimson form of G. corniculatum still eludes us...

Phlox subulata cv.

Not sure which clone--but a good one!

Acanthus syriacus

A hoary clump of this species that goes back to my day, incorrectly labeled as A. dioscurides, which still eludes us!

Salvia nutans

I'm crazy about sages--but this is one that Mike first fouind...

A wonderful form of Iris sanguinea (or siberica?)

Daphne x 'Rage Lundell'

These ginormous daphnes came from a rooted cutting sent to me by Joel Spingarn (who got it from the great Swedish gardener for whom it's named) nearly 50 years ago. The lower was a cutting rooted from the one above. So much for daphnes being short lived.

Iris lactea

Mike has mercifully retained a few of these Central Asian iris--which had spread far and wide. 

May and June are the most floriferous months in this garden--which was my focus for nearly two decades in the last Millennium. One of the great blessings in my life was working here--and another is to see it now in even more capable hands. Happy New Year!