Centenary

Harland Hand, an artist and gardener of genius, spoke of the path, the lookout and the shelter as the three touchstones that a garden must provide. Here is a glimpse of Jan Sachs and Marty Schafer's garden in Carlile, Massachusetts, one of the great gardens. I took the picture two years ago. I could go on and on about that place, but focus instead on the white eruption center left in the picture above.

Here it is closer up: that's an Artemisia whose specific name has been lost in translation, as it were. It's similar to but a better garden plant than the famous A. lactiflora 'Guizhou' (pronounced, incidentally, "Gway, Joe" and Not "Gooey, dzoouee" or the hundred other silly ways I've heard it called)...the Schafer/Sachs got seed from NARGS (donated by me) a long time ago. It has long since vanished from Denver Botanic Gardens, but flourishes still in Massachusetts. I must get it back!

I pick this plant to commemorate my mother, Artemisia Kornaraki Kelaidi, who was born a hundred years ago tomorrow. I was a mommy's boy (although I love and honor my father as well, who celebrates a very different centenary this year I will honor as well in due time). I shall see if I can scan an appropriate image of her: the Artemisia above should stand in pretty nicely until I do. My mother was uncommonly beautiful in a dozen different ways.

Incidentally as I type this, it's raining buckets outside my window, although the mountains 20 miles away are clearly visible and there is sunlight shining in my eyes, which I confess are streaming tears.

I am quite sure that when Shakespeare imagined Viola or Beatrix, or maybe Portia he had someone who looked the way my mother would have looked at the appropriate age in mind. Right up to when she was ninety and passed away, her head and face were exquisitely formed, elegant, and her eyes were a piercing silvery blue color, just like Athena's must have been. She was as complicated and compelling as a whole cast of Shakespearean protaganists. I never ceased to be delighted and intrigued and amused and entertained by her riveting conversation and her intelligent mind. I worshiped her, although at times I was exasperated by her trivial lapses, and my perception of her faults. In retrospect, I bemoan the grief I gave her and (although I know she knew) I wish i could have told her then what I know now: that she was the kindest, wisest , most beautiful, and most perfect mother a man could ever hope to have. And she was mine.

How ironic that this Greek goddess, this Venetian beauty, that my remarkable mother would share the Scientific name for sagebrush. Wormwood for God's sake. Her physical beauty would be worthy of an orchid or some glorious flowering tree like a Jacaranda or Spathacea, or some spectacular wild Iris, like I. cycloglossa.

I'm over it: I guess I am content to be the son of sage. Most Artemisia, after all, are incredibly lacy, and my mother loved lace. And they can form gnarled bonsai of enormous elegance and beauty. And I love the smell of almost any Artemisia, and there are few more richly aromatic and evocative things on earth than the sagebrush steppe after a heavy rainstorm.

I have been gathering various species of Artemisia over the years, partly as homage to my mother, on one hand. And also as an acknowlegement of their own intrinsic beauty. I find that I think of my mother, who died ten years ago, almost every day as I get older. This year I think of her more than ever. There's justice to things when I realize that no matter where I travel, Artemisia comprises a large proportion of the landscape, on the steppes of Asia where I'm headed soon, or the steppes of the American West.

Mother, I rejoice in your ubiquity, skirting my paths, providing shelter to my thoughts and a deathless lookout for my soul gazing out to eternity.

Requiescat in pace

Several correspondents emailed me today to tell me that Jim Archibald died yesterday. I know and admire many people, but none more than I admired Jim. I respected and loved Jim with a sort of unalloyed quality hard to describe. Jim could be harsh (especially in the famous forwards to his catalog): and I loved it. He could be many things. I somehow approved and enjoyed everything he did. The three weeks we spent together in Africa are a highlight of my life. I treasure our too few visits in America and Britain. I think he was the greatest plant explorer ever, and the greatest plantsman in the world.

I am despondent that I will never again have the opportunity to hear that nasal Edinburgh twang, nor watch that pipe point demonstratively. I will miss the zingers and the thoughtful circumlocutions and the always wise observations and the zest for people and plants. Oh Jim! I will miss you.

Thank God my garden is full of treasures Jim and Jenny brought back from around the world. Like Campanula trogerae (above) and dozens of other Turkish, Greek and Spanish treasures.

O Captain, my captain. You've left us much too soon.

And the skies are not cloudy all day...

Don't those swirling, dark clouds impend doom and gloom? (And no doubt some farmer out near Limon may have gotten hailed out later that afternoon). But the Moore bronze sculpture ("Oval with Points") in the Schlessman Plaza at Denver Botanic Gardens is unfazed, as were the blazing Kniphofias last June when I took this picture.

This picture captures so much for me: where else are so many rainy, cloudy days interspersed with so much glorious sun? It reminds me that sky is a perpetual and endless artistic element of our every day lives in Continental climates....OK OK, I know those who live in coastal regions do have skies as well. But they are so often gray or leaden, whereas we in the middle of continents are positively blase about our giant cumuloninbi, our ethereal stratus, our cirrus and alto cirrus, and pileus...and every imaginable permutation thereof....I am a sky worshiper and wonder that no one is out there with me gawking, glorying and agog (instead they are indoors watching "Days of our lives" or something similarly edifying: SHEEEESH! America! Get a LIFE!!!).

That said, I exempt from my exasperation the extraordinarily generous, wonderful people of the Rocky Mountain region (who pony up more money through mil levy, bond and sales tax per capita to support museums and scientific endeavors like Denver Botanic Gardens than any other place on Planet Earth) have turned out in droves. Our visitation is up astronomically from previous years. Our brand new parking structure routinely fills and visitors park at Congress park next door and who knows where else in order to visit. Denver: have I told you before how much I love you?

The dance of monumental sculpture, sky and garden is the great draw of the Henry Moore exhibit this year... undoubtedly a large part of our increase in visitorship. We are almost a month past the midway point of the exhibit, and I am finally getting off my high horse and confess that although abstract sculpture emphatically is not my thing, I really enjoy this exhibit. There! I said it...Even a diehard plant nerd such as your's truly (for whom botanic gardens are about plants, plants, and more plants) has to wisen up and sniff the sculptures, so to speak.

Of course, it does help if the sculptor is someone of the caliber of Mr. Moore. And it helps immeasurably that the curatorial staff of his foundation were inspired (along with our exhibits staff) to find and site the spot where these behemoths would show to maximum advantage...and that they coordinated with our horticultural staff to minimize damage to plants.

And it helps as well that each garden has its own genius, some are wild and naturalistic, others far more formal in design so that as you walk through the gardens each sculpture (so distinct from the next), often in a different color and medium is playing against the ultimate in superlative garden design and horticultural execution. And that it changes from day to day, and from the soft, lemon morning light to the brash technicolor of mid day, and finally the mellow Italianate ochres and russets of dusk.

And even those of us lucky enough to work in an edenic setting like this (despite the diurnal routine and the way one can become inured to anything--no matter how dismal or dazzling) are slapped it seems almost daily with the Zen koan of art sky garden. Amen.

Gifts and the Garden

If you had asked me about Ebracteola wilmaniae a year ago I would have said "huh?" and yet nowadays, every time I stroll through my rock garden I admire the rather lush clump of this and think many thoughts: how many more outlandish South African ice plants are going to grace my garden over the years? And I think of David Salman, who has this penchant of bringing by some amazing treasure every time he visits my garden...I have an ancient specimen of Echinomastus intertextus in a trough he must have given me fifteen years ago and not one but two wonderful Bulbinellas from the Drakensberg he dropped off this spring that have been blooming their heads off ever since: my garden is peppered with plants from David's visit and his astonishing nursery. Needless to say, if David's good company weren't more than enough, I look forward to his visits to see what other treasures might not be lurking down there in New Mexico, just waiting to be tested in my gardens!

As for this ice plant, it's from the West Cape and doesn't seem to have much justification for proving so hardy when you see the range it grows in. But last winter it produced fresh flowers in December and January: a winning trait in a plant. These pictures were taken five months later when it was still in bloom: those flowers are almost 2" across: no slouch!

Gardens are a gift each day as I stroll around and enjoy the vistas and vignettes, and often as not I think of the friends that plants came from, and soon the garden is entwined with an intangible web of memories and associations every bit as rich as its flowers and foliage, as evocative as a gust of daphne fragrance borne on the gentle morning breeze.

In praise of weeds

Ever notice how weeds keep morphing? At one point in my life the bugabear was Malva neglecta, at another point Convolvulus arvensis (which come to think of it is still with me) and there are always thistles. This year crabgrass is everywhere in my garden: in the grass, of course, but in garden beds, in pots: everywhere. As soon as you get a handle on one weed, another appears. By the time you get geared up to deal with it, suddenly they've started to go to seed and you are behind the 8 ball again next year.

Mike McLaughlin calls it the morass: the icky place where we slog and suffer day to day. I don't care if you are Doris Day or Polyanna of the most irritating ilk, you spend much if not most of your time there. Trust me. It can be a black depression, or boredom, or irritation or despair. But the quiet desperation is not just for the mass of men, Henry, it slogs and bogs and jogs the life of Pencil factory owners as well.

Perhaps that explains my love of marginal weeds, those I can more or less manage. Isn't it better to have Atriplex hortensis in its furious red manifestation, or red amaranth or Clary sage rampaging on the fringes of your garden. or Verbascums of the bombyciferum persuasion. These suck up space, and self sow, but you can eliminate them. And they give the crabgrasses a run for their money.

I consider myself fortunate that my morass is a sort of tepid despair that doesn't bog me down entirely: I have trained myself to do Sudoku, weed and write furiously when I'm in that negative space. When the times get tough, I get productive. Although I suspect that if I applied the time I wasted on crossword puzzles and Horticultural list-servers to gardening or writing, I'd be done with weeds once and for all and have a horticultural War and Peace or two on the shelf.

But then, a half acre given over to nothing but gems and jewels without the fringy near weeds and a bit of empty space would be almost as depressing as being married to Martha Stewart, say or being in a state of perpetual orgasm or just plain dreary cheerfulness. Don't you just hate pathologically cheerful people?

Here's to the weeds! Without them life would be too easy.

Lavender nation

The first picture is of the Parterre gardens at the City and County Building which I helped design and maintain with the Master Gardeners of Denver and staff from Denver Parks. I am amused that one of the few large public gardens of which I am a primary designer is a parterre--the most formal of garden styles...Mr. rock gardener does stray a bit.

I hope that if you click on the picture it will billow out enough to see the sea of lavender that the garden is gradually becoming. One could do worse. I can't think of a plant I like more, to tell the truth. Is there another plant that blooms as long? that is as wonderfully fragrant? that has such year around substance? that needs no irrigation? that thrives in almost any soil? Right now Denver is the Capital of Perovskia (another fine plant to be sure, but must it always be isolated? Stark eruptions of blue here there and everywhere...has anyone heard of companion planting? huh? huh?). Perovskia is a tad spready in many settings, and frankly pretty massive for most gardens and its winter appeal is marginal. But lavender is gorgeous in the winter. More lavender please!

I would like to see as much lavender as we have Perovskia right now. Instead you can drive for miles around Denver and not see a single one. What gives, eh?

I took the last picture last week at Joy Creek Nursery in the Portland area, a spectacular display garden selling tons of treasures at very reasonable prices. They have a fabulous assortment of lavenders I intend to tap into next spring (lavenders are best planted in April and May to establish deep roots before summer drought and winter frost)...

I could go on and on and on: the only Lavender Society I know of I was invited to join by J.C. Ralston: a sort of support group for gay (and those sympathetic to gay) horticulturists. I am sure Christopher Lloyd would have approved (every time I saw him he always wore rich lilac or lavender shirts)...I think that society is no longer terribly active since the only homophobes left in America are probably busy down in Arizona hunting down immigrants [can't you just visualize the rifle rack on the truck, the Nobama bumper stickers and terse no nonsensicality...yeeehaw! Regular Teddy Bear chollas these home grown Senoritos.].

How clever of gays to commandeer the color of sagebrush sunsets in the Wah Wah mountains when the West is awash in lilac and apricot and a cool breeze stirs. The color of Ionian mountains in the primordial dawn, the wild lavender nearby inspiring the Homeric poet with its fragrance, color, and its gentle, raspy sound.

A peek behind the curtain...

Makes a pretty good twin to Monrovia's serried ranks in the previous blog, don't it? Every bit as mind boggling, my first visit to Terra Nova exceeded my rather high expectations. When you have heard Dan Heims as often as I have, and seen those sumptuous images...and when you have grown some of their amazing plants, you begin to think that like the Wizard of Oz, surely the kingdom itself can't also be so wonderful: they must use a bit of smoke and couple dozen mirrors. One wonders if indeed Dan isn't JUST the man behind the curtain...Turns out this wizard doesn't mind if we step behind the curtain with him!

Alas, the sun was blazing. Otherwise I too could have gotten lots of those pictures I always secretly thought were photoshopped: the display gardens were as lush and the colors as vibrant as I feared...no Dan turned out to be understating things, that old modest harmonica player!

What fun to visit the scene of the crime, as it were...Mecca! No one has done more to transform America's shady corners into gorgeous gardens than this rather youthful business venture. And they are far from done.

Who would have dreamed just a few decades ago that our modest genus Heuchera would eclipse Hosta as the workhorse of shady gardens? And now the Terra Nova magicians are busy on a dozen other groups. Thank you, PPA, for inviting me to attend this year's meeting and finally making my Hadj....Praise to Allah! And his master hybridizer, vizier and magician, his excellency Dan Heims!