The OTHER ice plants....

Bergeranthus katbergensis

Bazeball may very well have bin bery bery good to Chico Escuela, but Delosperma bin berry berry good to me too. So much so that I fear Mr. Delosperma may be carved on to my tombstone. But there is more to hardy ice plants than merely that wonderful and seemingly bottomless genus of delight and confusion. We have had several dozen genera of Mesembryanthemaceae (or Aizoaceae or whatever they're being lumped into nowadays) make it through our very harsh steppe winters. One genus that gives me no end of delight is Bergeranthus--concentrated heavily in the Southeastern quadrant of South Africa, mostly in the East Cape, this genus seems to be enormously cold hardy considering that much of their range is warm temperate at best. We've had a half dozen or more survive--but the two toughest seem to be B. jamesii below and that stunning gem above. Did I mention that these bloom for months on end? and they are dead easy to propagate from cuttings or seed? Why are they virtually unknown in commerce? Beats me.

Bergeranthus jamesii

I actually found Bergeranthus jamesii growing on harsh pavements in the Tarkastad mountains where some very hospitable South Africans put Jim Archibald and myself up for two nights and showed us all around their property. The huge mounds of Haworthia marumiana growing near this had no seed--and plants could not be legally exported...we still need that one! We looked vainly for Delosperma dyeri that day in 1997 but had to wait another four years till that came into our ken...but the Bergeranthus was worth it! Did I mention that I was just sent a very husky specimen of a pure white flowered form of this plant? From Germany no less. Facebook has produced quite a few goodies for me: the naysayers are missin' out!



 s"Aloinanthus" hybrids

 My good buddy Bill Adams of Sunscapes Nursery pretty much invented x "Aloinanthus" group: although I believe Steve Brack at Mesa Gardens had grown a hybrid between A. spathulata and Nananthus sp. for years beforehand. Bill was the one who started hybridizing and producing some stunning intermediates you can find in his catalog. Do check it out...

 x "Aloinanthus" hybrid

Here is that initial Brack hybrid (above) which you can see is very close to the Aloinopsis spathulata parent (below)

Aloinopsis spathulata

The poor genus Aloinopsis has been tormented a bit--some of the rounder leaved, yellow flowered ones diverted into Deilanthe...there are a dozen or more taxa in this group, one more adorable than the next--they deserve their own Blog...heck, they deserve their own temple! But we must sample a few more delights...

Stomatium sp.
 

I am remiss not to mention that the first genus of ice plants I actually grew outside was not Delosperma, but Stomatium: a Danish born nurseryman named Alf Jensen, who supplied Denver Botanic Gardens with rock garden plants way back in the 1960's and 1970's propagated a Stomatium which he grew outside in Golden and sold it long before anyone in America had a clue what delospermas were...one of the stalwart volunteers way back then (whose name I forgot--a rather innocent middle aged lady who was not much of a gardener had planted it in her gardens, and assured me that it was hardy: I probably said something like "Listen, ice plants are not hardy outdoors--believe me")...there is a rich irony in this....sic transit gloria mundi...We have probably grown fifteen or more different stomatiums outdoors successfully in Denver. Some are humdingers.

Rabiea albipuncta

There are a bevy of Rabiea that look suspiciously similar to one another you can get from Mesa Gardens. They are all worth it: they probably have the largest flowers of any hardy ice plant. This one bloomed for me last March--although I saw one blooming on January 1, 2012 at Timberline Gardens (don't ask what I was doing sneaking around there on New Year's Day)...

Rhinephyllum ex Cyphe, Richmond

 This is my current nomination for gem of the year: I planted it two years ago this spring--it came through last winter in flying colors, and bloomed pretty much nonstop from April to autumn frost. It is a tiny morsel--perfect for a rock garden. Alas--it does not have a species name. Maybe it's new to science? Time will tell..

 

Ebracteola wilmaniae

 I have featured this once before on this blog, and tell the whole story: look it up if you care to--it's worth revisiting. My plant back then was much more modest--it has turned into quite the lush thing--and what flowers! It blooms for a long time. Bill Adams found a white sport which he is propagating and will probably sell soon: what wondrous times we live in!

Hereroa calycina

It only blooms at night. but the flowers are quite large--and it makes a wonderful large tuft of rubbery foliage that seems indestructible: This has become one of my very favorite ice plants. Many the moonlit evening I look out over my rock garden and see clumps of it here and there (I've spread it about) with those refulgent shaving brushes wide open to the midsummer moon--glowing glowing in subdued but reverent radiance to Luna....the goddess of lovers, madmen and gardeners. If you made it through that sentence you get a big shiny star!

Ice plants have indeed "bin beeeeerrrry berry good to Panayoti". Plant more and they'll be good to you too!

Odd couples. Unique pairings. Kooky combos.

 

Lovers of perennial borders are always seeking out wonderful ways of combining plants. Rock gardeners are notorious for their love of the cameo shot: and I'm a culprit in this arena. I have taken tens and thousands of mug shots of plants...finding two together in my image collection is a challenge--and when you do, what strange and mysterious things result.

I don't believe I have flaunted this one on this blog before: Paeonia cambessedessii was just moved from this spot (where it has not bloomed quite as well since I took this picture four or fice years ago.) And the Gentiana acaulis dwindled in this spot--but the Daphne cneorum 'Album' behind is bigger and better than ever, thank Heavens! This patriotic combination caused just about every visitor I led to it to glare at me with envy. Those are the moments gardeners live for.

Where else will you see Allium schubertii combined with BOTH Monardella macrantha AND Sedum rupestre 'Angelina'? I take credit for the picture, but the combination is Dan Johnson's in Yuccarama at DBG--tucked behind a wall where few sensitive souls are apt to see it and swoon. If they do, they are apt to fall into the prickly arms of
Yucca rostrata.

Don't look for either of these plants at Walmart, incidentally. The Sempervivum is 'Gold Bug'--one of the yellowest of its motley tribe. Those single rosettes are framing Rhinephyllum sp. --possibly a new species that I obtained from Steve Hammer of the Sphaeroid Institute. This miniature combo is primo every day of the year (although the Mesemb only blooms for five or six months). It is a dainty morsel that answers the question "why build a rock garden?"...

I took this picture in early July of 2009 on an enchanted trip to Kazakhstan led by the indefatigable and magnificent gentleman Vladimir Kolbintsev [possibly the best all around naturalist I have ever known, and a boon companion] for Greentours: the picture was taken on a remote corner of Mongolia (the only place we visited in that country not overgrazed--too far from any villages you see)...and the plants are a monstruose form of Rhodiola rosea and the ubiquitous Eritrichium pauciflorum of that area. Such is the stuff dreams are made on (for plant nerds anyway...)

Another unlikely (but wonderful) combo: Trollius altaicus rising out of a slightly less monstruose clump of Rhodiola rosea....

 

I finish with the most outlandish combo of all: myself and my girlfriend Jan Fahs--the beauty on the right (in case you were wondering--next to the beast on the left) at the Fete des Fleurs gala last summer at Denver Botanic Gardens.

I shall probably still take mug shots of alpines and rock plants...but I shall also try to find companions for them--for plants no less than people do not exist in a vacuum. And they often look (and grow) much better paired. I can attest to that!